Talk:Homeopathy/Archive 61

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Placebo or not?

This is one only example. In reply to your comment -Puddin'head about the properly powered paper by the same group - this is false. This was not individualized homeopathy - You compare different things- The one shows no difference between placebo the other ( individualized homeopathy does show a difference] http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/acm.2000.6.131 Conclusions: These results are consistent with the finding from the previous study that individualized homeopathic treatment decreases the duration of diarrhea and number of stools in children with acute childhood diarrhea. This is what I mean : if with different tricks one falsely summarizes the evidence then of course "all research" "taken together" (by distorting the findings and methods of course) shows that homeopathy is just placebo. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 18:13, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

First, I did not say that these papers were addressing the same claim, only that the larger trial which found no effect beyond placebo was the only paper (that I could find) from this group that was appropriately powered. As you are correct in pointing out that this larger study was not looking at the same endpoints using the same design, it is entirely possible that this one is underpowered as well. The other paper you reference has a small sample size and does not offer enough information to determine if the study described was appropriately powered, so it doesn't really do anything to further your claims of efficacy. Second, when "individualized" homeopathy is studied, it is almost impossible to draw any useful conclusions since there are so many variables that get introduced. It becomes a collection of multiple, poorly designed studies of several interventions, each with exceedingly small test subject groups, being passed off as one large study.

There's no need to pick through the particulars of every study. If you want to propose inclusion of any in particular, then bring them forward. My post was simply intended to point out that there are good reasons why most of the studies proposed as positive results of homeopathy are not accepted as appropriate evidence - and that it has nothing to do with your implied conspiracy of agenda driven editors forming a cabal against them. -Puddin'head24.9.79.14 (talk) 21:10, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Don't say conspiracy agenda. All these are stereotypes; it is not a secret that the editors here would exclude everything does not clearly state that Homeopathy is placebo. I gave examples above. Even reviews and meta analyses have been falsely summarized to state negative - even if some of their authors in reliable sources clearly state that their work supports the statement that Homeopathy might be effective for some conditions and not for others. Regarding individualized homeopathy -- the available reliable sources don;t concur with what you are saying: this is your personal opinion and it should not matter here. They concluded that "results are consistent with the finding from the previous study that individualized homeopathic treatment decreases the duration of diarrhea and number of stools in children with acute childhood diarrhea". And one has to report this conclusion not to edit it out because in her personal opinion individualized homeopathy cannot be tested. This is not in agreement with wikipolicy it is ok for writing your own polemic article. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 22:46, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Mario, read WP:AGF; it's one of our five pillars here at wikipedia. These regular accusations you're making border personal attacks, and they are not acceptable anywhere on this site. You need to find a way to work with other editors, not against them. Thank you.   — Jess· Δ♥ 22:51, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps MarioMarco2009 should edit some Wikipedia other than this one: getting "conspiracy agenda" from the anon's comment requires some serious confusion.

The paper is a single study, so doesn't meet WP:MEDRS. In addition, although I believe individualized homeopathy can be tested, it's fairly clear that the study you mentioned and the inconclusive study it extended did not do so. To do it cleanly, you need a "triple-blind" (or possibly "quadruple-blind") study; the researcher, the homeopath, the subject, and the person preparing the "remedies" all must not know whether the subject is getting the "remedy" or the placebo before the results are tabulated. The abstract said "double-blind"; since "triple-blind" is needed, "double-blind" is inadequate. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 23:49, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Personal attacks ? You must be kidding me. The only thing I said and I m saying is that it is NOT a wiki policy to edit out a meta analysis '"Homeopathy for childhood diarrhea: combined results and metaanalysis from three randomized, controlled clinical trials." based on what one thinks about a reliable source.Is not true that authors in reliable sources clearly state that their work ( meta analyses and reviews support the statement that Homeopathy might be effective for some conditions and not for others and the article makes them appear saying that it is all placebo? This is not a personal attack. I think you are trying to attack me because you disagree. Please stop. If you don't want to discuss it just say so. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 00:33, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

That paper fails. For starters, It is grossly out of date. It is not truly secondary. The authors overlap with the authors of this Boiron funded trial report on the same subject. LeadSongDog come howl! 02:59, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

They don't say that their work "supports the statement that Homeopathy might be effective for some conditions and not for others". The letter to the editor you are alluding to[1] merely says that "there is some evidence" that homoeopathy works for some conditions and not others, and cites a narrative review of theirs to support this proposition (and a statement that homoeopathy works for some conditions but not others is not a statement that it works better than placebo - placebo works for some conditions and not others). You are misinterpreting the letter, which cannot be used to support a claim that homoeopathy work by taking this comment from it out of context, per WP:STICKTOTHESOURCE. Quite apart from anything else, it opens with a statement saying that its authors "agree that homoeopathy is highly implausible and that the evidence from placebo-controlled trials is not robust". The review they cite also cannot be used to support a statement that homoeopathy has effects over placebo because it doesn't conclude that. Combining the two sources in this way would be WP:SYN. Brunton (talk) 07:31, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

What? Do you realize that what you are saying "and a statement that homoeopathy works for some conditions but not others is not a statement that it works better than placebo - placebo works for some conditions and not others" is completely non sense? The authors send a letter to the Lancet to dispute the methodology and the findings citing their work which in their words states what you there is some evidence for some conditions and you are saying that they agree that Homeopathy is placebo? This is what I mean gross misrepresentation of the facts. I m not saying that you are doing that in bad faith but you want so much the article to say what you believe about homeopathy that you twist the facts in your mind -- The fact the many other people think like that in this forum is really worrying. The same with the Jacobs meta analysis . II IS published in a reliable source and you edit it out purely because it does not agree with your point of view - How neutral is that? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 23:29, 4 March 2015 (UTC)

Arthur Rubin has already addressed this above MarioMarco2009 . Please do not repeat yourself ad nauseum. --Daffydavid (talk) 02:52, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

False. The jacobs paper is published as meta analysis. Not as a single paper. The rest Rubin says is his own ideas about -- something like thoughts on future of Original research. Interesting. But irrelevant. And he knows it. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 04:37, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

In any case, Jacobs is the author of the primary study PMID 8165068. A selfie-review does not constitute a Wp:MEDRS. It does not matter what an unreliable source says, we ignore it simply because it is not reliable. You need to accept this basic principle in order to function on Wikipedia.LeadSongDog come howl! 04:13, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Are you seriously saying that http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12634583 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pediatric_Infectious_Disease_Journal is NOT a reliable source? It is published as meta analysis ...Wow.... And this is in agreement with wikipedia policy? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 04:37, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

A meta-analysis authored by Jacobs, which pools three studies performed by Jacobs, does not satisfy WP:MEDRS - use independent sources. One author summarizing three of her own studies - of which two are described by the author as underpowered and one does not give enough information to establish the power - doesn't qualify as independent sources. - Puddin'head198.11.28.228 (talk) 06:33, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

It is not really a meta analysis anyway. To quote 'Because all three studies followed the same basic study design, the combined data from these three studies were analyzed to obtain greater statistical power.' That is not a meta analysis. That is combining data from three experiments as if they are one experiment. It is a primary study. Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:10, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Ouch. Pooling and re-analyzing data from one's own chosen studies to get a significant result. This sort of post hoc search for significance should make readers veeeery twitchy. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:20, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

it is not up to you to decide that. This is a clear violation of wikepedia policy, If such an exceptional source publishes it as a meta analysis then you have to accept it, You are an editor here not member of a scientific journal to decide if this is good review or even a review or meta analysis. It has been decided by the board of the journal. One has to report it if wants to neutral again according to wikipedia policy. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 01:47, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

On the contrary, it is very much of Wikipedia policy (as arrived at by the community) that contributors decide whether a source is appropriate or not, according to established criteria. Who else would you think would do the deciding? AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:50, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

No, this is false, You have to decide according to the written rules; you cannot decide that you will not follow the rules because in your personal opinion an x study is not good. If is published in a reliable source you have to accept it . Unless you have agree with other people to not follow the wiki policy, --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 01:55, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Which rules are you referring to? There are no Wikipedia rules whatsoever that determine that anything is a 'reliable source' in the abstract, and nor are there any rules that state that content 'must' be included. I suggest you take a little more time to familiarise yourself with Wikipedia policy before making demonstrably-false pronouncements about policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:09, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Indeed. Mario, the editors you seem determined to disregard have over 2000 times your editing experience here. They are giving you sound advice. If you cannot accept that they are doing so in good faith, despite wp:AGF, then I suggest that you take the question to wp:RSN, which exists for the purpose of assessing the reliability of sources. LeadSongDog come howl! 04:13, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Is that the paper that took three negative studies, combined inconsistent endpoints and conjured a positive result out if thin air? It sounds as I I might be.

University of Toronto pilot study

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Section title was changed from: "University of Toronto homeopathy pilot study --63% had a statistically significant improvement in the primary outcome, first occurring after a mean of 4.5 visits."  — Jess· Δ♥ 23:20, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

A fair compromise. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:03, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Here is a new pilot study.Links. http://www.thestar.com/life/health_wellness/2015/03/05/scientists-critical-of-u-of-t-homeopathy-study.html and the original pilot study. http://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/368137 -----MarioMarco2009 (talk) 04:28, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

How many times do we all have to ask you to read WP:MEDRS? This is, at best, a primary study. Dbrodbeck (talk) 04:37, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

You actually might want to read the Toronto Star Story, it is does not really present this woo in a positive light. Dbrodbeck (talk) 04:39, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

An uncontrolled pilot study showed a marginal effect after extended use? In a patient population that likely would have improved with time anyway? Shocking. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 04:52, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

A solid sample size of 35 children, studied over the course of an entire year in which they were not required to stop taking conventional medications. Strong find. Would you mind stop wasting everyone's time, yours included, with this inane crusade? Cannolis (talk) 05:32, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Mario, thank you for the link. Generally, it's good to provide a source alongside a specific proposal to change the article, so it's clear what you're suggesting. Are you suggesting we add this source to back up existing content, or to add new content? If you want to use it to support the idea that homeopathy is efficacious, then it would need to be compared to our other sourcing. Have you read through that? Here is one study we are currently using, for example. Notice how strong that source is? It's just one of many. If you're proposing something else, feel free to elaborate.   — Jess· Δ♥ 05:42, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Well. I did not suggest that this proves homeopathy. Or it is a large study showing anything definite. I keep thinking wikipedia article not as medium to prove or to disprove something but as an article contributing merely to information than to debunking or propaganda for or against, That's why I submitted its criticism as well. By the way do not say marginal - even the standard drugs primary studies show many times marginal therapeutic effects- if we exclude the side effects. Maybe in current research section.? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 21:00, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Mario, sorry, I'm still not clear on the proposal. Could you provide specific wording you want to add or change? Right now we are not using "primary studies", as you put it, we are using sources like the one I presented above - a systematic review of systematic reviews.   — Jess· Δ♥ 21:05, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I will think and let you know. ( Is n't funny that people here object Jacobs review on the grounds that she is one of the same authors ( meta analysis and primaries studies ) while they accept Ernst even if he is the only author of his review who is reviewing his ....own papers? Isn't that ironic? ) Wait a minute. ! --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 21:14, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

per MEDRS we do not use WP:PRIMARY sources - please read all of MEDRS, but in particular, the section called Respect secondary sources. Jytdog (talk) 22:40, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

@Mann jess: I think you might be unintentionally leading Mario down a dead end here - that source is so bad it is hard to imagine any context in which it could be used in this article. VQuakr (talk) 01:11, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Sure, I doubt that source will prove useful (which I did already suggest), but it's important that we take this one step at a time and encourage the right sort of behavior, especially for new editors. After all, we were all new once. Step 1) we find a source. Step 2) we propose specific changes based on it. The assumption that we can pronounce a source "reliable" or "unreliable" before even discussing the content it is intended to back up is pervasive in these last sections, and until that notion is dispelled, we will continue seeing problems. This source is reliable for the claim that a study about homeopathy was performed at the University of Toronto, and that 90 scientists (and two nobel laurettes) signed an open letter condemning it. Covering that may be undue, but at least we'd be past the question of reliability.   — Jess· Δ♥ 06:25, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I think according to what Im reading a source is either reliable or not. A meta analysis in reputable journal is reliable whatever the conclusion-- It is does not depend on the content you want to back up to be reliable. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 21:17, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I think it should be also reliable to mention with all the information you provided that the pilot study preceding this one found that The change in the median CGI-P T-score from baseline to the end of this open-label pilot study was statistically significant. The research methods are feasible. Future studies are warranted without endorsing the results as definite or proving anything. All these under current research and homeopathy. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 21:14, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Is there some reason why you think that the WP:MEDRS guideline regarding primary sources is somehow not applicable to this article? AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:16, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

I m just completing Jess suggestion. I m not talking about effectiveness, but about status of current research. This is just plain info. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 21:19, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

we determine sources first and then decide what to say based on them. you are doing this backwards. the source is not acceptable. Jytdog (talk) 21:21, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Exactly, and a pilot study, no, it does not meet WP:MEDRS. You also might find this useful [2]. Dbrodbeck (talk) 21:55, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

That was my suggestion but if you don't want the readers to know plain info about the current research on homeopathy and the reaction by some scientists - then you don;'t have to include it. (Maybe readers should not know too much - just the info provided by authors who want to debunk homeopathy)--MarioMarco2009 (talk) 23:11, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

@Mario, a source is not "reliable or not" divorced from a content proposal. A flat earth website is reliable for claims about what flat earthers believe, but not reliable for claims about whether the earth is, indeed, flat. This study is reliable for the claim that a study was done, but not reliable for the claim that homeopathy is efficacious. That's why I asked you what content you were proposing, because we can't judge if this source is "reliable" and then just put in whatever content we feel like. I'll be upfront (again), I anticipate there being other problems (like undue weight) with content derived from this source, but I'm doing my best to withhold judgement until I see what's actually being proposed.   — Jess· Δ♥ 23:18, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

In general. If a study published in a first rate journal- major university --- says homeopathy might be effective should be reported or not? NOT as final judgment on homeopathy;s efficacy but as plain information. In particular the content proposed was to inform about homeopathy's current research not to show that it is effective or not. .--MarioMarco2009 (talk) 00:23, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

No, per WP:MEDRS we would not use this primary study even if its quality were better. VQuakr (talk) 03:09, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

this issue is done. There is no consensus to use this source. No point going on and on. Jytdog (talk) 23:52, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Sure. No problem. As I said - why readers should know about anything on current homeopathic research and controversies about it. It is your decision, --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 00:23, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

No, it is absolutely not the decision of anyone here. It's the rules that underpin this encyclopedia at the most fundamental level. If it were just the opinion of a handful of editors, then you'd be right to rail against it, to seek consensus to overturn those people, to work towards getting the content you feel is right into our article. BUT IT'S NOT. WP:MEDRS is a hard and fast rule - and it applies to this article as it does to any other medical-related topic. The same thing applies to the WP:FRINGE guidelines since Wikipedias' arb-com group (our "Supreme Court") decided that Homeopathy, specifically, is (for sure) a fringe topic.

So continuing to dump these links and 'suggestions' without first doing due-diligence to ensure that they pass both WP:MEDRS and WP:FRINGE is wasting everyone's time here. Wasting time here constitutes WP:DISRUPT..."disruptive editing" and to make matters worse, you're doing it in an article which is operating under arb-com's discretionary sanction rules. That's a significant offense and really should get you at least a topic ban. So please for your sake as well as ours - when you find something that you think might be useful for this article, first do a careful check against the rules in WP:MEDRS and WP:FRINGE - and only bother mentioning it here if it passes those tests. Those rules alone ensure that these kinds of junk studies won't ever make it into the article - so you're wasting your breath anyway. Please stop wasting ours too - or we're going to have to seek formal sanctions against you - and that's something nobody wants to happen. SteveBaker (talk) 19:54, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry. I do believe that all the previous sources I provided are secondary sources by first rate journals and - per WP:MEDRS - they qualify. Regarding the last primary study and reaction about qualifies for information purposes not for proving anything. Reading WP:FRINGE I did not read anything like " please do not inform readers about current research - especially when this research causes so much controversy and reaction. This is my opinion. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:00, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

'Current research'? Hardly - and see WP:MEDDATE. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:03, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Talking about the university of Toronto pilot study. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:06, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Going in order: Reanalysis of three studies by the same authors (misnomered as a meta-analysis by the same), a letter to the editor, and a review article from 2003. If you honestly still think that any of those three are secondary sources as defined at MEDRS after the discussion that you have participated in here, then you lack the competence to edit health-related articles. VQuakr (talk) 02:08, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

The qualification to be considered sec sources is granted by the editorial board of a first rate journal - not from anonymous editors on line. Since it is published as meta analyses in a reputable;e journal per Med is a secondary source. Maybe you can email the editorial board and tell them that they are ...incompetent. -----Why don't you object systematic reviews of systematic reviews by Ernst. He is the ONLY author who is citing his OWN papers. The review from 2003 qualifies for the same reason the 2005 Shang review qualifies. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 11:46 pm, Today (UTC−4)

The idea that a pilot study satisfies WP:MEDRS is laughable. Dbrodbeck (talk) 02:22, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I did not say that. Read carefully. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 03:46, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Why are we still doing this? Again, there is no proposal on the table. It's been made clear that the source is not MEDRS compliant, and Mario understands that he needs to make a concrete proposal, with a concrete source, to have a discussion. I'm hatting this - please make a new section to propose a change to the article. Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 03:54, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

NPOV, Original Research and Lack of Citations

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The article is highly biased. It is now locked and therefore un-citated statements cannot be tagged as such. Two examples are given below:

Non-homeopathic treatment — patients may also receive standard medical care at the same time as homeopathic treatment, and the former is responsible for improvement

Cessation of unpleasant treatment — often homeopaths recommend patients stop getting medical treatment such as surgery or drugs, which can cause unpleasant side-effects; improvements are attributed to homeopathy when the actual cause is the cessation of the treatment causing side-effects in the first place, but the underlying disease remains untreated and still dangerous to the patient.

Both these statements are completely unsubstantiated and un-citated.

The quality of the article is poor in terms of consistent application of no original research rules (both within the article and with respect to other Wikipedia articles) but the tone of the flags at the top of the talk is that "the judges decision is final and no further correspondence will be entered into" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.198.145.187 (talk) 17:53, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

You say that these statements lack citation. This appears not to be the case - there is a citation to Jay W. Shelton's Homeopathy: How It Really Works at the top of the section. Have you checked it? AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:59, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

This is not a review - as you would say - Is it ? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 01:50, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

No, it isn't. We don't need a review article to source what science says about homoeopathy. The section makes no specific claims regarding the efficacy or otherwise of specific treatments. Instead it offers (in most cases blatantly obvious) explanations as to why people may perceive it to work, in the face of substantial evidence that (beyond the placebo effect) it doesn't. I'm quite sure that most, if not all of it could be sourced individually, but I can see no reason to do so, given that no source has been provided suggesting that any of it is incorrect. It should of course be noted that any remotely-credible study of the efficacy or otherwise of homoeopathic treatment takes the factors described into account as a matter of course, and accordingly isn't stating anything remotely controversial. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:06, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

It makes claims of efficacy or alleged mechanisms of placebo homeopathic remedies or whatever, You need reviews for that. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:09, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

What claims? AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:11, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

That "patients may also receive standard medical care at the same time as homeopathic treatment, and the former is responsible for improvement". Are there any secondary sources reviews of primary studies to support this statement? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:25, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Given that any primary study that failed to take into account that subjects were also receiving standard medical care would be complete and utter bollocks, I suspect not. Or are you suggesting that standard medical treatment fails to work if taken in combination with homeopathic remedies? AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:02, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I m not suggesting anything. You need studies to show this kind of effect. Placebo is responsible for treatment in standard medical treatment as well. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 03:56, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

What 'kind of effect'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:15, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

You need studies to show patients may also receive standard medical care at the same time as homeopathic treatment, and the former is responsible for improvement. Reviews per MEDs - Are there any? IF not the statement is not supported. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 17:10, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

No. We don't need studies disproving the effectiveness of homeopathy - it is up to those promoting homeopathy to prove that it works. And the overwhelming evidence so far is that it doesn't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:57, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Of course you don't need studies disproving the effectiveness of homeopathy. It has been decided before even to read anything. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 21:09, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

That's right, it has - by science. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:21, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

@MarioMarco2009: the default position is that any treatment does not work. See null hypothesis. Asking for a source that "disproves" a treatment is shifting the burden of proof and is not going to be accepted. Specific to editing at Wikipedia, WP:MEDRS applies to specific medical claims. A book source is perfectly adequate for supporting the statements that you quote at the start of this section. VQuakr (talk) 01:27, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I know I know- However since the placebo effect exists in standard medical treatment as well you cannot say what caused the effect. Placebo conventional treatment or homeopathy. Unless you study it systematically. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 03:09, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Except that, the reason "allopathic" medicine is accepted as useful medicine is specifically because it has been demonstrated to have a statistically significant effect beyond an appropriate placebo control. So, you give a patient something that has been proven to work, along with something that has never been shown to work and which has no plausible mechanism of action, and yes, the assumption is that any observed effect results from the proven intervention and not from the application of the absurd. - Puddin'head190.102.31.0 (talk) 23:49, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Never has been shown to work is of course a fantasy. There are pilot studies before. The "No plausible mechanism of action" is a matter of point of view - Science does not work like that. Aspirin and several medications work and the mechanism of action is unknown. Most of the available drugs ate effective only for 45 percent of the patients. So you don't really know if it is the placebo effect or the allopathic medication. Thats way they have reviews. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:42, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

the Mechanism of action of aspirin is pretty well understood - it works primarily by inhibiting cyclooxygenase, both 1 and 2. inhibiting cox-2 gives it anti-inflammatory effects; inhibiting cox-1 is what hurts your stomach. yep. Jytdog (talk) 02:58, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes this is correct. I meant to say was unknown-- When they started using it -. The mechanism of action of anti depressants is still unknown -does it mean that they have no effect? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 05:12, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Would you include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors amongst the antidepressants with unknown mechanisms of action? AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:15, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Of course - the mechanism of action is still unknown. That's well known. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 21:31, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Mario, the mechanism of action is always nice to know, but in medicine that knowledge is not essential for the medicine to be used. What is essential is proven effectiveness above and beyond the placebo effect (even if it's only 45% above), and a good risk/benefit ratio. Homeopathy has an excellent risk profile because it has no risk, but it has no proven benefit when used alone, and definite risk when used instead of provenly effective medicines.

Its proposed mechanism of action is nonsensical. Its effects are unproven, and not above what can be expected of a placebo, making it an excellent placebo. The problem with deliberately using it as a placebo in actual clinical practice, instead of a proven product, is that it's unethical to do so outside of blinded RCTs.

If homeopathy clearly worked better than a placebo, we wouldn't engage in this conversation. To find any claims of efficacy, one must scrape the bottom of the barrel for poorly performed studies, anecdotes, etc.. The better a study is performed, the more clear it becomes that homeopathy is a pseudoscientific fake "medicine". -- BullRangifer (talk) 01:20, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

@MarioMarco2009: no, you just do not understand what "shown to work" means in a medical context. VQuakr (talk) 04:33, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes. I understand; also if you exclude all the sec sources showing some evidence for homeopathy then you get no evidence at all. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 05:14, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Mario, you are missing two important distinctions: 1) being able to imagine a mechanism of action does not mean that it is plausible. Achieving a biological effect by diluting something out of existence is not plausible; that is not a point of view but a tautology. 2) The medicines you are referring to have been shown to work in statistically significant, properly powered, properly designed, properly executed, and properly analyzed trials - homeopathy has not, that's the big difference. - Puddin'head190.102.31.0 (talk) 21:29, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

"Plausibility"y is a really a non scientific concept. . Relativity was not "plausible" and it was regarded as pseudoscience - how plausible was that time mount Everest would be different than time at see level.? Before the war even later this would be laughable. According to recent research about anti depressants at least the studies showed not to be really powerful- but other medicines of course work, There are studies showing some effects of homeopathic dilutions published in first rate reliable sources ( sec studies ) disputing even the implausibility of high diluted remedies but they are not allowed to be cited and used in this article. I gave examples before.--MarioMarco2009 (talk) 23:04, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

Relativity was never considered 'pseudoscience'. AndyTheGrump (talk)

It was - --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 00:30, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

The article you link to does not say that relativity was ever regarded as pseudoscience; it says that some criticisms of relativity had a pseudoscientific basis. Brunton (talk) 20:29, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

There is no content and no sources being discussed here. Per WP:NOTFORUM there is no point continuing this. Jytdog (talk) 23:54, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should we open a Request for comment (RfC) Is a http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12634583 a reliable source?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Well- Lets start a (RfC). ( IT is kind of absurd to ask if a major journal publishes meta analyses which according to wikipedia are excluded by its definition for reliable sources and are not regarded as such -- but lets see how many editors agree to that) . --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:23, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

As I explained above, it is not a meta analysis. It is combining three sets of data as one. Dbrodbeck (talk) 02:28, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I think a major's journal assessment is what counts not our opinion, according to wikipedia. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:33, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Firstly, you don't start a RfC like that, and secondly, there is no such thing as a 'reliable source' in the abstract. If you wish to propose specific text, and then ask for community involvement in any decision as to whether the source is reliable for that statement, you should probably ask at the Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard - an RfC at this stage is premature, since you haven't even tried the noticeboard. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:58, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

I think I started correctly - Asking for other users about it. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 03:58, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok, suit yourself - but don't complain when you get no response. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:13, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Reliable source for what? Guettarda (talk) 04:16, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

To use in an article about medical practices and methods including homeopathy, --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 17:13, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

No, you didn't start an Rfc. You just asked a question. That's fine, but it's not what we call an RfC, which is a certain type of formal process to request outside input. RfCs generally concern very specific suggestions for article changes, not discussion about the reliability of sources (and "is X a reliable source" is generally an unanswerable question anyway). Either way, we have a whole noticeboard for that sort of inquiry, which you were already pointed to.

Look, Mario, there are so many things wrong with what you're doing it's hard to even have a discussion. In your mind, you are single-handedly battling an army of biased editors to right a great wrong, but as a very experienced editor here, I assure you that's not what's going on. You are on track for one of two things: 1) you will waste a bunch of time and become frustrated, or 2) you will continue to the point of disruption and be sanctioned. Neither have anything to do with the content of your suggestions; they have to do with your approach to editing. I'm not opposed to including reliable sources; I'm opposed to misrepresenting our sources. I'm also opposed to violating our policies. You need to become familiar with our policies (and accept some of the help you're being offered) before parading around as some sort of valiant white knight, rejecting any input which doesn't advance your goals.

Seriously. The very best thing you can do is to edit some uncontroversial articles for a little while until you become familiar with our policies, then come back here and make a new proposal. But if you won't follow that advice, then you need to go to WP:RSN. You can't just keep asking the same question here until you get the answer you want.

I'm hatting this discussion, as a duplicate of the one above, and one that very squarely belongs at a noticeboard created for this exact purpose.   — Jess· Δ♥ 04:26, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

No Jess. These are not good manners. You cannot close the discussion like that. This is not your personal web space. It is entirely reasonable to ask the other editors if a source is reliable It is not reliable only if it says something you want hear. This is the core of the neutral point of view. . And we can decide about the process of request for comment. A source is either reliable or not reliable. I would like to hear more opinions on that.Thanks. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 16:06, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Jess is right. I miscounted the number of editors who said that Pediatr Infect Dis J. is not a reliable source. Even if think that this is absurd - and not in line with the neutral point of view one has to accept it. This is the reality according to wikipedia editors. . Thanks for listening. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 18:03, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

• WP:MEDRS is clear that we use the most recent secondary sources we can. A search of Pubmed shows that PMID 17285788 is the most recent review, and that is the one we use. It finds no effect. The proposed source is from 2003. Jytdog (talk) 19:31, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

Not so honest. By that rule you should object the inclusion of several other reviews in the article .Besides that this is NOT a meta analysis aboutHomeopathy for childhood diarrhea: but in general about Homeopathy for childhood and adolescence ailments - Quite different. The one is edited out is the most recent about this condition. MarioMarco2009 (talk) 21:02, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

discuss content not contributor You do not appear to have a policy/guideline based response. Jytdog (talk) 22:39, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

I did not discuss you. The action is not quite fair, --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 23:59, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

The more recent review covered childhood diarrhea, and concluded that the evidence "is not convincing enough for recommendations in any condition". Brunton (talk) 22:56, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

For the specific condition the censored one is the most recent In general yes. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 23:59, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

this issue is done. there is no consensus to use this source. no point continuing thisJytdog (talk) 23:53, 8 March 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

"Homeopathy not effective for treating any condition, Australian report finds"

Is this new? http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/mar/11/homeopathy-not-effective-for-treating-any-condition-australian-report-finds 81.134.154.227 (talk) 11:11, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

The story says it was released today. So, maybe it is new. Dbrodbeck (talk) 11:28, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

The Guardian is not a useful source as it fails MEDRS. However, the actual report is a "position statement published by major health organizations" and is a perfect, gold-standard MEDRS source. We should include content from the source and use it. Jytdog (talk) 12:48, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

(ec) For reference, here is a link to all the documents from the NHMRC. (PDFs at the bottom of the page for the various summaries, submissions, analyses, and statements.) The two-page summary is here. It doesn't pull any punches; the first sentence is "Based on the assessment of the evidence of effectiveness of homeopathy, NHMRC concludes that there are no health conditions for which there is reliable evidence that homeopathy is effective." TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:56, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

An excellent report. -- BullRangifer (talk) 14:56, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Right - it doesn't quite say "Homeopathy doesn't work" - but "can find no evidence that homeopathy is effective" , which is a slightly different thing. I can't see a reason why it shouldn't be referenced - it passes WP:MEDRS and it's definitely on-topic. Sadly, this is going to outrage the homeopathy apologists who frequent this list and offer links for the article that are repeatedly rejected...they are probably going to play the "bias" card. But for those people, we must again emphasize: We'll consider using anything on the subject if it passes WP:MEDRS. SteveBaker (talk) 15:18, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, it looks great. How shall we proceed? Dbrodbeck (talk) 17:36, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

How about "<huge> HOMEOPATHY DOESN'T WORK </huge>" at the top of the page? -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 17:43, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I would object to such an approach. -A1candidate 17:53, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

We knew that, A1c. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 18:03, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Well, I can find no evidence of that approach being wp:MEDMOS-conformant. ;-) LeadSongDog come howl! 18:17, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

The draft is already mentioned at the foot of the lede. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.132.247.154 (talk) 18:29, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

Right, so I guess we can just change the reference basically. Dbrodbeck (talk) 19:00, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

The section "sytematic reviews and meta-analyses of efficacy" could be erased then, and replaced with my suggestion? -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 19:33, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I like that much to your surprise. This will give to the article a lighter and more accurate idea about its content , purpose and tone, Strong support, --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 16:26, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

“Homeopathy has been proven to be no more effective than placebo.”

This is nonsense. Herbal medicine has been proven effective and used for thousands of years. Whoever wrote this Wikipedia page is obviously working for the pharmaceutical industries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jane955 (talk • contribs) 14:00, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

Homeopathy is not herbal medicine. Also, it's not about who wrote it, but based on which sources: those are indicated by the numbers that you can find after the sentence that you quote. Darkdadaah (talk) 16:06, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

You may want to read the rest of the article to find out what homeopathy is before you defend it as something that it has nothing to do with. You may also want to look into the notion of "proof" before suggesting that herbal medicine has been proven effective.-puddin'head198.11.31.81 (talk) 16:16, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

true, this has nothing to do with herbs. This is a theory that the more diluted a medicine is (the less active ingredient there is) the more effective the treatment is. While it may be possible that herbs may play a role in some homeopathic treatments they are not the main focus.

--64.229.166.239 (talk) 07:38, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

It may be that some homeopathic 'treatments' used a herb of some kind as their starting point. However, whatever it was will be diluted by the homeopathic process to the point where there is none left - so any the connection to the original herb is gone. For that reason, you can't connect the occasional success of herbal treatments to the universal failure of homeopathy. It's an entirely unrelated subject. SteveBaker (talk) 01:55, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree that it is nonsense, but I add that it is more than that: it is ignorance and disrespect. Very primitive and old-fashioned...It disrespects the millions of people that throughout time had amazing results with homoeopathy. Many allopathic physicians are also homeopath and they can testify about the efficacy of homeopathy. I would also add that placebo theory in what regards H. efficacy. About placebo I would just say: animals are great beneficiaries of h. treatments with great results and virtually no side effects. TSS. 93.108.50.46 (talk) 23:03, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Changes to lead

@Pediainsight: can you please stop adding this poorly written, completely redundant text to the lead? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 17:42, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of efficacy - request for clarification

The following statement found in this section may need to be clarified or rewritten:

Subsequent work by John Ioannidis and others has shown that for treatments with no prior plausibility, the chances of a positive result being a false positive are much higher, and that any result consistent with the null hypothesis should be assumed to be a false positive.

I would think that should read "any result NOT consistent with the null hypothesis should be assumed to be a false positive", since results which are consistent with the null hypothesis are not positive results and therefore can't be false positive results. There may be a better way still to word that statement, or I may be reading it wrong. - Puddin'head 24.9.79.14 (talk) 03:25, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

This is magical thinking I m afraid. And also you are getting involved in original research. You should be concerned if the findings of the reviews you are talking about are reported accurately not trying to evaluate them and decide which of the reviews will be reported. There is a reason for the authors to use specific words; if you want to correct the problem email the editorial boards and suggest that they change their wording so it can fit with the wikipedia article. Just an idea!--MarioMarco2009 (talk) 13:40, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Say what? "You should be concerned if the findings of the reviews you are talking about are reported accurately" - this is exactly what I am doing. My stated concern is not with the findings of any sourced article, but with the wording used by the original Wikipedia editor who added the material to this article. Sometimes, people make typos when adding content to Wikipedia. The passage in question simply doesn't make sense to me as it is written and, since this could be on account of me reading it wrong or on account of there being better wording for the entry, I am hoping others will take a look and assess it. - Puddin'head 24.9.79.14 (talk) 14:19, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

And I have to say, based on your response, it would appear you aren't reading anything anyone is writing here, not reading the material that comments are referencing for discussion, or you are intent on being disruptive. - Puddin'head 24.9.79.14 (talk) 14:25, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

A result consistent with the null cannot, by definition, be a false positive. Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:00, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I just read those two references, I don't think our article has it correct. I think it should read 'inconsistent'. Indeed it pretty much says as much in the second paper, if you read the section on CAM. Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:17, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, that was my concern, looks like a simple typo - thanks for checking. I don't know that I have the ability to go in and make the change, so if anyone else would like to, or if we want to wait for some more input, I'm happy with whatever path you want to pursue. - Puddin'head 24.9.79.14 (talk) 15:24, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to get one other editor to confirm what our suspicions are then I can change it. While I am not trying to make an argument from authority I can say I have some expertise in stats and research design. Dbrodbeck (talk) 15:31, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Sounds like a solid plan, thanks D! - Puddin'head 24.9.79.14 (talk) 15:40, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Today's "sense of humour" award goes to Mario, for using the phrase "magical thinking" on the Talk:Homeopathy page. Well done. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 15:43, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

• To be clear, this idea did not originate with John Ioannidis. It is a restatement of Bayes' theorem, and underlies the field of Bayesian probability (which Ionannidis has done much to popularize in relation to medical research). As others have noted, our article should state "not consistent with the null hypothesis" for the sake of correctness. Even better, the sentence should be rewritten to make clear that the idea of updating prior probabilities originated with the Rev. Bayes, rather than Ioannidis, and probably we should move away from the null hypothesis and its ensuing double-negatives in the interest of accessibility and readability. The basic principle is that if something is extremely unlikely to be true based on existing knowledge (e.g. homeopathy), then any statistically significant positive findings are much more likely to be "noise" rather than evidence of effectiveness. As usual, xkcd has put it best. MastCell ^Talk 17:59, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Of course this sentence is almost unscientific --almost la logical fallacy- since there is no precise definition of what is extremely unlikely. Imagine this mode of though in criticizing relativity 80 years ago . Was relativity plausible based on the knowledge of the time? However since the source is reliable has a place in the article yes state it accurately .Thanks. The problem is that the editors here they use it to claim that any statistically significant positive findings are much more likely to be "noise" and to edit out such studies or to falsely summarize the positive/ inconclusive to a statement - it is all placebo. Which is not in line with the editing policies. Just my view. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 18:36, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Hmmm. Some people might say that it's unscientific to discard all existing knowledge and instead rely solely on an arbitrary p-value threshold to determine whether an effect is real. (A point made in the xkcd comic that I linked). Of course, you're not the first person to grapple with the subjective nature of prior probability. The beauty of the Bayesian approach is that an assumption can be tested under a range of prior probabilities (more formally, a prior probability distribution), modeling different levels of plausibility for homeopathy.

As for relativity, you're comparing apples to submarines. Relativity was an elegant mathematical solution to some vexing problems in physics, and it made testable predictions which have since been validated. We're talking about something very different here: we're talking about using inferential statistics to determine whether homeopathy has a measurable effect on various clinical outcomes. Those two processes are so different that I can only assume you picked the relativity example at random. MastCell ^Talk 19:45, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

I dont know where to start with you. First of all are you a mathematician ? because if you are I would talk differently. I will assume from your writings you are not so : the "arbitrary" p-value is a standard convention in these applications. This does not apply only in statistics used exclusively in homeopathy. Therefore the "arbitrary" p value is misleading.Wrong. It is a convention unless you imply that all studies based on statistics are not reliable. Now much to your surprise a mathematician would tell you that statistics cannot really prove anything ; they can show something which is less preferable than proof --- a mechanism of action which in case of homeopathy has not been detected. Plausibility is therefore a non accurately defined concept and really useless in mathematical logic and in logic in general. The relativity example was not ...random: it was not "an elegant mathematical solution" this is a wrong. Mathematical equations require just proof not validation through experiments. There were no plausibility for relativity that why famous scientists of the period rejected it on..... pseudoscientific basis until they had evidence from observations. In short and to be on topic whatever plausibility means does not mean that we can not falsely summarize papers changing the authors wording. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 03:46, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Really? All decisions are based on p<=0.05? That's what you're going with? VQuakr (talk) 04:48, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Mario, you are way off base here as MastCell is spot on with his response, and much of your reply is simply a straw man which implies MastCell is arguing things which were never argued. The p-value is convention, but it is nevertheless arbitrary - there is no ab initio reason for using a p-value of 0.05 - it has simply been agreed upon by most statisticians as an appropriate boundary to avoid the influence of simple chance on an outcome. In addition, your argument against plausibility playing a role in statistics goes against at least 250 years of statistical theory. Furthermore, there is a (at least one) key difference between the theory of Relativity and homeopathy where plausibility is concerned. You seem to be focusing on the notion that Einstein's hypothesis was not universally accepted before experiments could be conducted to demonstrate its predictive power. These experiments were the grounds of the hypothesis being promoted to a theory, but they did not speak to the plausibility of the hypothesis. The original hypothesis agreed with all available experimental data at the time - it did not contradict anything that was directly observable, but tried to establish a universal solution to the problem of relativity and, in doing so, happened to introduce several counter-intuitive predictions which turned out to be true. It was always plausible, just hard to swallow. In contrast, the basic premise of homeopathy contradicts everything that is known about pharmacology, as well as many well established laws of chemistry and physics. That, coupled with 220 years of failure to demonstrate an effect, is why it's branded as implausible. Finally, your arguments have no place here. People have tried to explain to you that your opinion is not fact, yet you keep coming back with the same irrelevant, nonsensical arguments that have nothing to do with the content of the article. Here's a time-line: Our article mentions the pertinence of Bayesian theory in the interpretation of homeopathic research. I pointed out that the statement did not reflect what Bayesian theory actually posits. You accuse me of "magical thinking" for some reason, and then try to dismiss 250 years of statistical theory because you don't like it. Where are you going with this? As for your final statement that "we can not falsely summarize papers changing the authors wording", that is precisely the flaw I was trying to address when I started this section of the talk page! Appologies to everyone else for wasting the space, I'll drop this at this point. - Puddin'head 24.9.79.14 (talk) 05:09, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Just for clarification, p=0.05 is not arbitrary. Actually, Ronald Fisher, a very influental scientist in his days, argued in the 30ies that 0.05 is a special case as it is represent the amount of values which are greater than twice the standard deviation in a normal distribution. I just googled for a reliable source for it, and i found this interesting read. I am not an expert in the Bayesian theory (i should be), but in my field (microbial ecology), we still use 0.05 a lot in hypothesis testing, with the datasets getting so big, that p-values are adjusted for multiplicity. I am impressed by MastCell's knowlegde in bayesian theory, and i will teach myself on that. Rka001 (talk) 18:00, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

There's a pretty decent overview of frequentist vs. Bayesian issues in a recent issue of Nature, complete with a nice visual demonstrating the impact of prior probability on the interpretation of p values. Anyhow, I'll leave it there, out of deference to the talkpage guidelines. Cheers. MastCell ^Talk 18:26, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps any rewording of the statement in question should refer to this more recent article provided by MastCell (thanks for the link, by the way), particularly since it specifically mentions the implausibility of homeopathic efficacy as follows:

"The more implausible the hypothesis — telepathy, aliens, homeopathy — the greater the chance that an exciting finding is a false alarm, no matter what the P value is."

Any thoughts? - Puddin'head 64.58.20.99 (talk) 19:42, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I'll make the small change now, we can work on getting Bayes in there later on. Dbrodbeck (talk) 18:12, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Just a reminder of WP:NOTFORUM. This page is not for discussing how science works or the theory of relativity. It's not even for discussing homeopathy. Only specific changes to the article, please. Mario, you should read WP:CRYSTAL. If homeopathy works, wikipedia is not the place to record it until we have ample demonstration in reliable sources. The same would go for the theory of relativity in Einstein's day. Wikipedia lags behind the sources, quite intentionally. If you can't provide reliable sources which demonstrate a non-fringe view that homeopathy is effective, then we cannot say it is. Please don't respond to me to argue... I assure you this is how Wikipedia policy applies.   — Jess· Δ♥ 05:34, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Spoilsport :P What can I say; I like talking about Bayesian inference and the (mis)use of clinical statistics, and I've actually used homeopathy as an example in IRL teaching that I've done on the subject. To me, the question of why people keep doing randomized trials using frequentist statistics and a p-value threshold of 0.05 for a treatment which lacks any evidence of plausibility is a much more interesting topic than anything to do with homeopathy per se. But I'll let it go; you're right about the talk-page guidelines. MastCell ^Talk 16:15, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

I am familiar with the article and with the research base. The issue is that with homeopathy, the positive results are still consistent with the null hypothesis. I have yet to see a positive outcome for homeopathy that refutes the null hypothesis, and most trials of homeopathy cannot formally refute it, as they are concerned with probability not an objectively testable binary result. So it's correct to say that these studies are consistent with the null hypothesis and are false positives.

The confusion comes in when you try to quantify the null hypothesis. Homeopaths say the null hypothesis is placebo, and their result is inconsistent with that. They are wrong. The null hypothesis includes placebo effects, regression to the mean, expectation effects, observer bias, natural course of disease and so on.

However, I think the problem Ioannidis highlights is different from the homeopaths' lack of understanding of the null hypothesis. Consider: you drop a ball bearing and time the fall, and claim that your result is not consistent with Newtonian mechanics and thus refutes gravity, when in reality your apparatus is placed in a strong magnetic field. Even if you don't know the field is there, the extreme implausibility of the result tells you that you should look for it before asserting that you have disproved gravity. So what he's actually saying is that if the result appears inconsistent with the null hypothesis, the result is probably a false positive.

So the term null hypothesis is ambiguous, it could mean either of the two scenarios, and we should look for a different form of words - I would argue "apparently inconsistent with the null hypothesis" as being unambiguously correct. Guy (Help!) 13:45, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm open to discussion on the wording since, as you have pointed out, the issue is not entirely clear. I agree with MastCell that phrases such as "does not refute the null hypothesis" serve as a triple negative of sorts and get to be tricky. Likewise, the phrase "apparently inconsistent with the null hypothesis" is prone to be confusing to the casual reader looking for information on the value of homeopathy. Perhaps some layman's terms to explain the import of prior probability's role in hypothesis testing? - Puddin'head 198.11.31.228 (talk) 15:20, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

Homeopathy Awareness Week

It's Homeopathy Awareness Week. Welcome anyone coming to this article at the request of a homeopath to "correct" the information here; the problem is in the real world, please ask the homeopath to "correct" the laws of physics first and when that's done we can reflect the change in this article. Guy (Help!) 12:02, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:52, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
1) No shock that corporate governments do what their corporate masters tell them to do. 2) Meanwhile in 2012, 694,000[3] people worldwide died from colorectal cancer and not one coroner blamed allopathic treatments causing their deaths in the biggest coverup in history. 3) Allopathy is big business, earning nearly one trillion dollars worldwide and highly profitable, all for most drugs and tests that have never been proven and have been shown to kill hundreds of thousands like Vioxx®. 4) NHS England has a budget of £95.6 billion, and they are worried about £4 million, utterly nonsensical. [4] 5) In 2007, Merck agrees to settle class action lawsuits against its drug Vioxx® to the tune of $4.85 BILLION. [5][6]Veritatis in lege (talk) 23:18, 10 April 2015 (UTC) Tu quoque 98.181.41.237 (talk) 23:57, 10 April 2015 (UTC) Veritatis in lege, talk pages are not immune from close scrutiny, so I have amended your comment re Merck settlement. It might be actionable, so please be more careful in future. Moriori (talk) 00:30, 11 April 2015 (UTC) Problems with real medicine validate homeopathy in precisely the same way that plane crashes validate magic carpets. I'm not sure if you spotted it, but the science that discovered the problems with Vioxx, is precisely the same kind of science that shows homeopathy doesn't work. Science is self-correcting for error, religious cults like homeopathy are not. Guy (Help!) 23:39, 11 April 2015 (UTC) The same grossly negligent and incompetent science that did not prevent a deadly drug like Vioxx® on the market is the same grossly incompetent science that is being used to judge homeopathy. There are no answers to be found in the medical holocaust. Do you have any facts or evidence about the religious cult of homeopathy?

Australian homeopaths say that it was not a systematic review - raise questions -- high risk of bias against homeopathy ?

http://www.homeopathyoz.org/images/news/Open_response_letter_by_AHA_to_NHMRC.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarioMarco2009 (talk • contribs) 03:16, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Because Australian homeopaths couldn't possibly be biased themselves.--Jeffro77 (talk) 03:38, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

While the Australian government is not bound by the rules of Wikipedia when assessing research quality, they have complied with the simple objective standards of the scientific method and the assessment of the value of the supplied evidence. Page after page of discussion about homeopathy here on Wikipedia only exists because of the bend-over-backwards approach to fairness that is embraced by Wikipedia and codified in its policies. This accommodating approach is a good thing - perhaps the greatest value to be found in Wikipedia. But when homeopathy is assessed outside the bounds of Wikipedia's rules, the reviewing bodies are able to (and necessarily must as a part of due diligence) look at the real quality of individual studies. Unfortunately for the proponents, the bulk of the studies that suggest any effect from homeopathy suffer from a wide variety of clear flaws, including: lack of blinding, lack of randomization, lack of proper controls, lack of statistical power, lack of any plausible mechanism of action, publication bias, inaccurate reporting of ostensible science (Benveniste), and so on ad nauseum. As for Wikipedia's rules as applied to the referenced article, an opinion piece published by a group of homeopaths in response to an utter disembowelment of their art (which is based on the objective assessment of available evidence) is of no more value than an equivalent response by a group of unicorn veterinarians who take offense to a finding which states that tax dollars should not be spent on unicorn breeding. With that preamble out of the way, if you have specific sources that call into question the findings of the Australian position, and which satisfy WP:MEDRS, then please bring them forward - this article does not qualify. - Puddin'head 24.9.79.14 (talk) 05:01, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

(I don't think that the situation is so dramatic. Studies and reviews showing that there is some evidence that homeopathy is effective for some conditions published in high quality journals do exist - and its exclusion from this article is a clear violation of the policies.) Regarding the letter of course it is not a review but a reaction - one could add it as an objection by homeopaths not as the " true". . --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 05:25, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Please cite a systematic review that concludes that homoeopathy is effective for some conditions. Brunton (talk) 07:38, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Systematic review --Freital (talk) 11:25, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

What does that review say Freital? -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 11:30, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

From the conclusions in the abstract: "The low or unclear overall quality of the evidence prompts caution in interpreting the findings". AndyTheGrump (talk) 11:36, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

I knew that Mr. Grump, but I wanted Freital to read it. -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 11:42, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Better than nothing.--Freital (talk) 11:59, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Really, not. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 12:02, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Of course yes. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 15:13, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

But the paper's finding that the available evidence is of such low quality as to not allow for any reliable analysis is already stated in the Wikipedia article and sourced to others who have come to the same conclusion. So whether individual editors here feel it is "better than nothing" - apparently the gold standard of establishing homeopathic efficacy after 220 years of looking - doesn't come to bear on its inclusion in the article. It certainly shouldn't be included as evidence of efficacy. - Puddin'head 24.9.79.14 (talk) 15:43, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

It is evidence of efficacy - which should be interpreted with caution. Why don't you write what they say? The problem with this unscientific attitude prevailing in this talk page is that you think you are doing original research.And you have to be convinced that homeopathy works for everything otherwise you will write it is all placebo. Weak evidence does not mean ---it is placebo - this is misleading, Report what THEY say NOT your thoughts about their review. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 16:23, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Nobody thinks they are doing original research. However, you are demonstrating a classic case of WP:IDHT. Dbrodbeck (talk) 16:44, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

I think you are. Why don;t you try to respond to the precious concerns instead of talking with generic codes WP:IDHT etc. I suggested the study to be reported such as according to ...X homeopathy ....whatever. IF not explain specifically - give reasons not read this and that. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 18:45, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

As stated before, there's no reason to add it since the efficacy section of the article already states the same conclusions: "In particular, reports of three large meta-analyses warned readers that firm conclusions could not be reached, largely due to methodological flaws in the primary studies and the difficulty in controlling for publication bias.[16][20][174]". This is simply a paraphrasing of the findings of the paper you are suggesting be added. While the paper being discussed states that there is a small effect seen in some subsets of the data, that conclusion is rendered moot by their more overarching conclusion that the data is of low quality and therefore unreliable. Perhaps it's worth discussing adding this new paper as a forth reference, though I don't know that it would add anything to the article. - Puddin'head 24.9.79.14 (talk) 19:05, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

I would add to the info that several reviews reporting positive but inconclusive - which is different than all is placebo. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 21:23, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

To state that "homeopathy is effective for some conditions" would require a systematic review that said, without reservation, that "homeopathy is effective for some conditions". If the only sources which say it is effective are ones that also, in their own words, say there are significant problems with the research, then we haven't met the burden required to overturn our existing and extensive sourcing which unequivocally says otherwise.   — Jess· Δ♥ 20:11, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

That would be true if you were conducting your own research project ; then you ( this is the royal you) should decide if the evidence is convincing enough to make such a statement. In a encyclopedia all the points of view should be just reported ( NOT asserted as true statements) according to their appearance and prominence in reputable journals. These are the policies for reliable sources. Unless we agree that we will not follow them in this article. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 20:51, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Yes, positive studies exist. That is expected for an inert treatment, see Why Most Published Research Findings Are False; this identifies the role of prior plausibility in the chances of a positive outcome being a false positive. Homeopathy has zero prior plausibility so the probability of any positive outcome being a false positive is 100%, and that's what the systematic reviews show. Guy (Help!) 13:11, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

No. Using the totality of a source would not be original research. Selectively quoting from a source is not something we do here. The source you are suggesting says that the data is poor and more research is necessary. We can't just leave that part out.   — Jess· Δ♥ 21:32, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

I did not even reply that. The "totality" of the source means paraphrasing in a degree that it is changing its meaning? Use their entire conclusion. Not editing out anything. "According to .....this study Medicines prescribed in individualised homeopathy may have small, specific treatment effects. Findings are consistent with sub-group data available in a previous ‘global’ systematic review. The low or unclear overall quality of the evidence prompts caution in interpreting the findings. New high-quality RCT research is necessary to enable more decisive interpretation. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 22:21, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Your notion of how things work here has been rejected by a number of very experienced editors. In short, you are wrong. Seriously, move on, this is wasting everyone's time, yours included. Dbrodbeck (talk) 22:23, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

That was quite an argument. It does not go by seniority/majority - Can you explain why citing the entire conclusion in the authors words is biased and your paraphrase is more accurate than the authors summary? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 00:44, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

MarioMarco2009, you have been told over and over again why you are wrong. Read WP:UNDUE, everything you need to understand is in the first paragraph. Okay, now that you still haven't read it --- GO READ IT. --Daffydavid (talk) 00:56, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Dont tell me read this and that. Try to explain why why what I suggested is wrong specifically. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 01:21, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I am assuming you can read. Copying and pasting a section that reads like it was written specifically for you is pointless. GO READ IT!!!!!!!! --Daffydavid (talk) 01:44, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Specifically for me ? The authors conclusions are written specifically for me? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:43, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

He's saying that policy page applies here. Inserting your proposed wording would be undue weight.   — Jess· Δ♥ 04:32, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

It would be undue weight to report what exactly the source says without editing out anything ? Can you point out exactly where wikipedia policies ask for that? It not required to write about the study in detail just to no distort its meaning . — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarioMarco2009 (talk • contribs) 13:41, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Quoting the abstract of what is basically just another study that has failed to demonstrate efficacy in the way you are suggesting would be giving it undue weight.

If you want the article to say that there is evidence that homoeopathy works for some conditions then, per MEDRS, we will need to cite a systematic review that has concluded this. That is what you need to produce here. Brunton (talk) 14:01, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I want the article to report the findings unedited-- not that it works or not. An encyclopedia and wikipedia should report the findings unedited not to conduct its own research. I think this introduces the less bias. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 15:31, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

This is an encyclopaedia, not a blog. We are under no obligation whatsoever to report every bit of inconclusive research that merely repeats what we already know. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:38, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

You claimed further up this thread that "[s]tudies and reviews showing that there is some evidence that homeopathy is effective for some conditions published in high quality journals do exist - and its exclusion from this article is a clear violation of the policies". If you are not proposing adding this to the article, then you shouldn't have posted it here. This talk page is for discussing changes to the content of the article, not for general discussion of homoeopathy or generalised complaints. See WP:TALK. Brunton (talk) 16:09, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I made a specific suggestion - based on the review above. Report the findings of the meta analyses study -- unedited. OF course you have to report all research and its criticism as long as it appears in reputable journals. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 16:26, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Devoting several sentences to every study ever performed would overwhelm the article. We are under no obligation to do that. This study agrees with what the article already says, so "adding it" would either 1) leave the article unchanged, or 2) incorrectly summarize the study.   — Jess· Δ♥ 17:16, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

And I assume you still haven't read WP:DUE. Quoting from the second sentence: "articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of, or as detailed, a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views."   — Jess· Δ♥ 17:18, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

We are not talking about detailed presentation - How 3 sentences of the conclusion is a detailed presentation? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 17:28, 15 March 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarioMarco2009 (talk • contribs)

I'm not sure how to respond to that without repeating myself... Have you read what other editors are saying? Can you summarize their position for me, please?   — Jess· Δ♥ 17:31, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Most of them they are just saying read this and that. Nothing specific. I read the above about undue weight and I m asking the following "How 3 sentences of the conclusion is a detailed presentation" 3 sentences which is the entire conclusion can be regarded as detailed presentation - It is a really easy question . --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 18:12, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

If you haven't understood anything up to this point beyond "read this and that", then I see no benefit to continuing the conversation. Consensus is very clear on this issue, and I have other things to do with my time. Good luck.   — Jess· Δ♥ 18:40, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, this very paper has already been discussed here, only a couple of months ago. Brunton (talk) 19:00, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Since you are point out a specific policy you should be able to explain why my specific suggestion ( including 3 sentences of the entire conclusion ) is not allowed. "should not give minority views or aspects as much of, or as detailed, a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects" You don;t give any rational explanation to this - you just say we are the majority and therefore it is out. OF course I have to accept it - but this is once again one more violation of wikipedia ;s policies -- no wonder why people protest in this very talk page for bias and inaccuracy. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 19:17, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Again, the conclusions of this study already appear in the article, albeit referenced to other sources, so there is nothing to be gained by adding the conclusions verbatim. I suspect you would not support any suggestion to write out verbatim the conclusions from every review that found no evidence for efficacy beyond that of a placebo - why should we afford this article that honor? Quoting the conclusions of this review, simply because it contains the words "small effect", would also be misleading since the broader conclusion of the paper is that the finding of a "small effect" is unreliable due to poor quality - it would give undue weight to a conclusion which the authors themselves have stated should be interpreted with caution. As for there being a difference between "inconclusive findings" and "no different from placebo", inconclusive findings demand that we default to the null hypothesis until conclusive results can be obtained. The null hypothesis for all of these studies is "no better than placebo". - Puddin'head 24.9.79.14 (talk) 20:49, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Since you are asking me - No I do not object "to write out verbatim the conclusions from every review that found no evidence for efficacy beyond that of a placebo" at all. the opposite, The entire conclusion of the review would give undue weight? Policies here say do not describe it in detail - and 3 sentences is not in detail for sure, Forget about the null hypothesis - you are not doing your own research but you report all the findings - you are not the judge- if an x treatment works or not but you have to report the findings precisely- as they stated not edit our whatever you think it is not in line with the majority view. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 22:23, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

Great, Mario, then you will easily be able to link to the WP:PAG that says that, wont you, eh? -Roxy the dog™ (resonate) 22:26, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that anybody here disputes what I m saying, - That editors should not be involved in original research trying to validate the null hypothesis. They merely report the available evidence according to its prominence. . --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 22:42, 15 March 2015 (UTC)

No one is trying to validate the null hypothesis, as it requires no validation - a study either finds evidence to reject it or does not find evidence to reject it. You have stated that inconclusive evidence is not the same as placebo equivalence, but in terms of the scientific method, it is the same thing because inconclusive evidence does not allow you to reject the null hypothesis (which, in any properly designed trial states that the intervention being examined is no better than placebo). It's not original research, I'm just stating how the process works. In fact, it would be original research - or more appropriately "spin" - to suggest that inconclusive evidence amounts to anything other than a failure to reject the null hypothesis (placebo equivalence). In regards to your current proposal, and as pointed out by Roxy, there is no WP policy which suggests that the results of every study ever done should be copied and pasted into the article verbatim. The conclusions of the paper in question have been posited before by other authors and they are already stated in the current WP article. There's nothing new here worth adding, other than possibly the additional reference. - Puddin'head 24.9.79.14 (talk) 02:09, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

The report has no 'prominence' to speak of - it appears not to have been cited in any recognised scientific journal. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:13, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

In which case I withdraw my suggestion to consider adding it as a reference. - Puddin'head 24.9.79.14 (talk) 02:22, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Puddin'head you are contradicting yourself - the null hypothesis process should not concern you or me. You suppose to report accurretally the conclusions - And positive and inconclusive does not mean - it is placebo in any language. If it did they would write it down ------- I m not suggesting anything but a simple inclusion of the extremely short conclusion of the study in the authors words.There is no spin not even one word I would add ---Wikipedia policies dictate that you should refer to the minority view just not in detail - it does not say edit it completely out. It seems that the majority here does not want the readers to even know that such reviews exist--- giving the false impression that all reviews say H = placebo. Which is almost a lie. I understand that I cannot change that myself but this is biased and misleading. Sorry I have say that. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:43, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Should criticism of Shang et al. be included?

The paper by Shang et al. [7] stating that homeopathy is ineffective has been criticized. I added in some of this criticism, but it was removed. I think that there are enough reliable sources, e.g. [8] [9] [10] to justify including this criticism. Everymorning talk 00:25, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Cognitive dissonance is the standard on this wiki page.

Everymorning, your links to reference 7 and 8 are identical - was there a third paper that you wanted to submit in support of your argument? - Puddin'head 198.11.29.3 (talk) 02:49, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

• Thanks for pointing that out. The third paper I wanted to link to is here here. Everymorning talk 11:52, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

That's the first one again (Link now fixed, so struck). Brunton (talk) 13:46, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

That one has been discussed here frequently; check the archives. It doesn't really overturn the main finding of Shang, which was not that there was no significant effect for the best quality trials of homoeopathy, but that when bias was taken into account "there was weak evidence for a specific effect of homoeopathic remedies, but strong evidence for specific effects of conventional interventions." The basis for their conclusion was this difference. Brunton (talk) 14:37, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that as Ioannidis points out, it is normal and expected for an inert treatment to accumulate a net positive evidence base in clinical trials due to a variety of biases and confounders. Linde et. al, 1999, also shows why this is specifically true for homeopathy, with more positive results generally coming from less rigorous trials and evidence of a very large number of studies by believers trying to prove that their belief is correct (which is why homeopathy is considered pseudoscience). Shang's conclusions have now been echoed by three separate government-level reviews - Switzerland, the UK and Australia - and are consistent with the totality of the body of knowledge about homeopathy, specifically, that there is no reason to suppose it should work and no remotely plausible way it could work. Guy (Help!) 10:18, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

Of course criticisms should be included as long they appear in reliable sources, Regarding Ioannidis - this is a logical fallacy or magical thinking I m afraid. If you accept the current scientific method you don;t declare a treatment inert a priori and then you claim that it is a law that whatever positive results are statistical noise. Sorry. You have to accept and present/report as evidence pro or against whatever the statistics say as long as they comply with the typical and standard applications in medical research. Not to have special requirements because you "believe" that an x therapy requires "exceptional" evidence. This is completely unscientific. And of course a logical error. Therefore yes criticisms should be included - you should not even ask ----thats the core of wiki policy---which sadly is not applied in this article --- to make it easier to "debunk" a method instead of presenting accurately what reliable sources tell us. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 03:13, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

You are just throwing buzzwords around. You cannot make something a "logical fallacy" or or a "logical error" or "unscientific" by calling it that. And of course science takes empirical evidence and theoretical plausibility into consideration. It is silly to dismiss theoretical plausibility as "unscientific" when it is in fact one of the pillars of science. It seems to me that you don't know the first thing about how science works.

If there were solid evidence for homeopathy doing anything beyond what sugar does, its implausibility would be just a drawback. If there were a theoretical reason why it should definitely work and if it were mighty strange if it would not, the empirical evidence would probably not come under that amount of scrutiny. But since it is neither plausible nor empirically justifiable, its scientific status is zero, it is nothing but superstition. Please go away, you cannot contribute to the article. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:30, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Sidenote, please don't say things like "Please go away, you cannot contribute to the article." That's not true, and not helpful. Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 12:39, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 April 2015

143.166.226.114 (talk) 18:51, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

It is not effective for any condition, and no homeopathic remedy has been proven to be more effective than placebo.[6]

This is opinion and not fact. This page is filled with opinion. I might agree, but it still should be better. 143.166.226.114 (talk) 18:51, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format. Jamietw (talk) 18:58, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

There are three, very solid, WP:MEDRS-acceptable references that say exactly that. Wikipedia's standard for "The Truth" is the existence of solid references backing up any particular statement. So, as far as this encyclopedia is concerned, it is a fact. There comes a point where we cannot hedge every statement with doubt and uncertainty - at some point, a statement reaches the Wikipedia standard - and we must state it clearly and unambiguously. While there are a great number of people who doubt what this sentence says, there are also a great number of people who doubt that men landed on the moon or that the holocaust really happened. But we simply cannot write for that tiny minority...this is a fact...and we must state it with as much authority as we do the moon landing. SteveBaker (talk) 05:37, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. It is not opinion, but scientific fact. This content is backed up by very solid references. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:15, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

These are selected scientific facts and their representation is partial, one-sided. This is really not a glorious chapter for WP.--Freital (talk) 19:38, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

WP:NOTFORUM; please provide specific changes backed up with reliable sources in order to contribute. Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 20:03, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

FDA hearings about the status of homeopathy

Keep abreast of the current FDA hearings about the status of homeopathy. This may result in changes to current USA laws and regulations, and there will be sources we can use to document these hearings. -- BullRangifer (talk) 06:20, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I doubt these hearings are even worth mentioning in this article, unless they result in concrete changes in how homeopathic medication is governed in US. They can be (and already are) included in Regulation and prevalence of homeopathy#United States. Related: Can someone improve on the placeholder sentence I added to the Homeopathy#Regulation and prevalence section and add content about Canada. Mexico, Japan etc? Currently the section covers mainly regulation in Europe and India. Abecedare (talk) 20:45, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

The edit does not show up on the page. Some problem. User:Fred Bauder Talk 21:05, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I see that User:Fred Bauder has reverted my edits. I am not going to edit-war over this, and hope that as an experienced user, they too chose to discuss the edits here. Abecedare (talk) 20:48, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly where the information should go. The hearings are notable under the usual Wikipedia policy of considering material notable that is published in reliable sources. In this case, Science (magazine). The entire hearing, however, is available online. No particular action is being considered, just revisiting of an unregulated area. User:Fred Bauder Talk 20:53, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

• On placement: IMO the material about FDA rules and hearings (quite obviously) belongs in the section on Regulations rather than the section on 20th century revival
• On inclusion: The question is not about notability or reliable sources, but about WP:DUE. The article needs a sentence on how homeopathic remedies are currently regulated in US (which is currently missing from the article besides mention of the 1938 act). It does not need to go into details of a FDA hearing, that may at best result in changes in those regulations at some indeterminate time in the future; the latter can be discussed at Regulation and prevalence of homeopathy#United States). Abecedare

(talk) 21:03, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

The subject is too long and complicated to be gracefully included in either article. In either case it grows out of proportion. Probably a separate article, especially if the FDA takes action. National focus of the topic skips from place to place. In March it was Australia. User:Fred Bauder Talk 21:09, 23 April 2015 (UTC)

homeopathy

Please do more research on homeopathy. This article appears to me to be heavily biased. Thank you. 98.244.192.178 (talk) 19:10, 27 April 2015 (UTC)S. Du Laux

Do you have any sources to suggest? Dbrodbeck (talk) 19:46, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

Plausibility of homeopathy

A paper in Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy states, among other things, that "Sweeping statements about the scientific impossibility of homeopathy are themselves unscientific: scientific statements must be precise and testable." Should this paper be included in this article? Everymorning talk 14:43, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Why not? We must include this paper in the interest of neutrality. --Freital (talk) 17:26, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

The article already makes clear that homeopaths believe their craft is plausible. VQuakr (talk) 18:06, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

Our article does not say that homeopathy is "scientifically impossible". It states that proposed mechanisms are "scientifically implausible" and "physically impossible". Both statements are properly sourced and factual, given all available evidence. The quote you are suggesting also implies that these concerns simply comprise a dismissive "sweeping statement". This assessment is inaccurate - Wikipedia articles are meant to present an overview of the topic, not dive into every minute detail and list everything that is specifically wrong with homeopathy and its proposed mechanism of an indemonstrable action. You may read "scientifically implausible" as a sweeping statement, but the literature is full of specific concerns addressing the lack of any evidence to substantiate the mechanistic claims of homeopathy - the statements made in our article are summary, not sweeping. - Puddin'head 198.11.30.177 (talk) 16:29, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

The paper is an opinion piece written by a group of homeopaths in 2013. It has no value to this article. Guy (Help!) 13:33, 10 April 2015 (UTC)

If the journal is considered a reliable source then yes it should be reported. It does not matter if the writer is a homeopath - Ernst is an anti homeopath according to himself - His opinions should be excluded because of this? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 03:17, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Assessing the plausibility of homeopathy is the domain of physics and chemistry. When there are papers published in Physics and Chemistry journals saying that the mechanism of Homeopathy is plausible, then it would be worth including. It is WP:UNDUE weight to include a paper by non-experts in some journal of questionable notability and quality. Wikipedia is not about creating a false balance for the sake of neutrality. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 03:37, 22 April 2015 (UTC)

Questionable notability and quality ? Who is questioning its quality ? The anonymous wikipedia editor who finds even the .... lancet not worth including when it reports something else than -- "we all agree that homeopathy = placebo"? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 14:12, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Clinical practice guidelines for the use of homeopathy

I have been notified that there are "clinical practice guidelines for the use of homeopathy" [11] by another editor and would like to see this being covered here. -A1candidate 10:10, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

....Source and content proposal, please?   — Jess· Δ♥ 13:05, 8 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm assuming he doesn't mean this new guidance from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. Guy (Help!) 19:02, 29 May 2015 (UTC)

Chirumbolo et al.

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This study by Chirumbolo et al. was removed by Black Kite, who cited several reasons for doing so in his edit summary. First, he said that it did not meet MEDRS. However, other individual experiments are cited in that section, and the claim that high dilutions of histamine have biological activity is not a medical claim, so MEDRS does not seem to apply here. He also said that it was not peer-reviewed, but Inflammation Research is a peer-reviewed journal. The statement that Paolo Bellavite (the paper's senior author) is biased toward homeopathy is WP:OR, and producing scientific evidence in support of something you personally disagree with does not constitute bias. In short, I think this paper should be restored. Everymorning talk 21:48, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I agree. It should be restored ( its rejection is not a surprise in this talk page --- every study reporting positive for homeopathy is excluded with different excuses even they are published in reputable journals. )--MarioMarco2009 (talk) 03:45, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Black Kite was correct. It's a primary study, and therefore not MEDRS compliant. That alone is good enough grounds to exclude it. -- BullRangifer (talk) 03:53, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

It is not a medical claim as Everymorning talk 21:48, 17 May 2015 (UTC) said. So MEDRS does not apply in this case --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 04:00, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

How is "...we have shown that low and high dilutions of histamine inhibit CD203c up-regulation in anti-IgE stimulated basophils." not a medical claim? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 04:38, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

The part used - "an effect of high dilutions of histamine" - sounds like a medical claim to me. I suggest you take this to Wikipedia talk:Identifying reliable sources (medicine). That's where discussion of specific sources related to MEDRS often end up. Another venue is Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:43, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Yeah - of course it's a medical claim - anything that suggests that Homeopathy either is, or is not, effective is a medical claim! SteveBaker (talk) 04:47, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

How the claim that high dilutions of histamine have biological activity is a medical claim? Medical claims typically have to do with specific conditions-- Which condition the study claims that it can be treated? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 05:08, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, but your highly unorthodox definition would mean something like "exercise increases red blood cell count" would not be a medical claim. And I suggest you read WP:MEDRS: "Ideal sources for biomedical content includes literature reviews or systematic reviews published in reputable medical journals, academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant field and from a respected publisher, and medical guidelines or position statements from nationally or internationally recognised expert bodies." --NeilN ^{talk to me} 05:27, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Not a successful metaphor. What is the specific medical claim here? Can you describe it ? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 14:14, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

It's a perfectly fine metaphor if you're not engaged in WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. And, again, please actually read WP:MEDRS. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 14:39, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Ok it is ......great. Dont tell me read this and that -- Can you say specifically what is the medical claim here? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 20:46, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

@MarioMarco2009: I'm telling you to read the guideline because your question and idiosyncratic definition have nothing to do with WP:MEDRS. Do you not understand "have to do with specific conditions" <> "biomedical information" --NeilN ^{talk to me} 20:52, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Biomedical ----- meaning ---as an adjective ---- relating to biology and medicine or biomedicine This is not my own definition. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 21:00, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Great. No mention of "having to do with specific conditions" right? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:07, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

??? Isn't that part of the word medical of or relating to the science of medicine, or to the treatment of illness and injuries.

So this isn't a medical study focusing on biological responses? --NeilN ^{talk to me} 21:53, 18 May 2015 (UTC) of or relating to conditions requiring medical but not surgical treatment . What is the medical claim here ---relating of any of the above ?--MarioMarco2009 (talk) 21:21, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

it does not say anything about medical science or conditions ---according to our definition ---- it is a biological study --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 22:45, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

According to your definition which no one else has supported. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 23:02, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

My ......definition ? Lets vote on the........ dictionary definition then. Wikipedians should decide whether the standard definition of the word "biomedical" should change in order to exclude this paper from the article. Why not? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:02, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

Nothing on Wikipedia has to change as everyone here except you agrees that WP:MEDRS currently mandates the exclusion of the article. If you want to propose a change the guideline, knock yourself out. --NeilN ^{talk to me} 02:12, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

talk agrees with it. But you are right ---the majority here agrees that the dictionary definition of "biomedical" is ......wrong . It might be. You might be right, And the dictionary wrong. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:36, 19 May 2015 (UTC)

As to the claim of WP:OR regarding Bellavite, I'd just point out his books for sale on Amazon or this paper on his own website (First line "Homeopathy is an ancient and complex therapeutic method that is rediscovering its scientific foundations." - note that it's co-authored with Chirumbolo too, although the two later fell out over a paper that Bellavite perceived as not pro-homeopathy enough [12]). Black Kite (talk) 09:22, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Ernst has an entire blog ranting against homeopathy - that makes him an anti homeopath and therefore biased and his opinions and research should be edited out? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 14:15, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

I was pointing out numerous reasons for removing the study. The main one was MEDRS, but we do have to be careful about their provenance; there are a lot of this type of study out there, most emanating from Italy. I was pointing out that Bellavite has what Wikipedia would call a COI; but it was only a supporting reason. Black Kite (talk) 14:35, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

And Ernst has a COI - He makes his living preaching against homeopathy and he does not hide it- I personally think that he expresses the best skeptical point of view ( I don't agree with it of course but i don't advocate for removal of its material.

Besides that can someone explain why this is included http://www.biomedcentral.com/1472-6882/4/15 ----but not this This study None of these are reviews. -- --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 14:29, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Because the first paper is an NMR study of water looking for differentiating signals between negative controls and samples containing iteratively diluted solutes - that's physical chemistry. There are no biomedical claims being made, they are just looking for NMR signals and there is nothing remarkable about their findings. The second paper (the primary one in question here) is suggesting a biological response to water previously exposed to histamine. They are making a (remarkable) pharmacological claim which qualifies it as biomedical research, so WP:MEDRS applies.

Personally, I don't like the WP:MEDRS argument against inclusion of this paper - there are better reasons not to include it, but those reasons would qualify as original research. Since we are (appropriately) restricted from doing original research here, I will concede that paper can't be rejected for, what I see as, good reasons. That being the case, we should stick to the other restrictions of Wikipedia and not include this paper on account of the (IMHO) technicality that it doesn't satisfy WP:MEDRS.

On another note, I agree with Mario that work should not be excluded on account of its being the conclusion of a homeopathy advocate. Disqualifying research due to the researcher's beliefs and expertise is simply an inverse appeal to authority. But again, since we can't exclude such research for much better reasons on account of the WP:OR policy, I'm happy with disallowing it based on any WP policy that does apply. - Puddin'head 198.11.31.192 (talk) 18:06, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

You cannot seriously say that a study which reports that they used " Two animal (Sepia and Lachesis), two plant (Ignatia and Lycopodium) and two mineral remedies (Natrum Muriaticum and Argentum Nitricum), all of which occur commonly in clinical homeopathy, were used for the project. They report that "The mechanism of action of homeopathic remedies has baffled practitioners and scientists for two centuries" and you are saying that it does NOT have anything to do with medical claims.And the study you object to and says nothing about homeopathic remedies or clinical applications --- just high dilutions makes medical claims ? --- I m sorry You must be kidding me. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 21:28, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

No, I'm serious. The context of the study doesn't matter as much as the tested hypotheses and experimental design. The NMR paper talks about homeopathy as the reason they did the experiments, but they ultimately were looking for proton resonance signals in water. They were not testing any biological hypothesis - it's physical chemistry. You can't write-up an article about Sesame Street, talk in the introduction about how the show is thought to be greatly impactful on children, carry out an experiment in which you look under a few rocks in the hopes of finding Mr. Snuffleupagus, and then claim that you have done research in the realm of human sociology and childhood development. Even if they saw remarkable NMR signals (which they didn't), that wouldn't say anything at all about homeopathy or any real biological process; it would only speak to the appearance of NMR signals where they weren't expected. That's it. The lack of any mention of homeopathy in the other paper also has no bearing on the fact that it is studying a pharmacological claim; which is to say, they are looking at the proposed effect of a non-endogenous material (ultradiluted and succused histamine solutions) on a physiological process. That is ostensibly pharmacology and therefore clearly being passed off as biomedical research. - Puddin'head 107.2.139.27 (talk) 02:07, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

It takes a lot of magical thinking to say that the context of the study does not matter?????? This is really laughable - no offense but when they say that they try to detect if there is any mechanism for the alleged effect of homeopathic remedies --this has nothing to do with a medical claim or the examination of a medical claim?? They conducted the study because =according to them the results could show something about homeopathy positive or negative the rest are your words. On the other hand if the study has nothing to do with the !!!!!!! homeopathy topic then it has to me removed.

--MarioMarco2009 (talk) 04:15, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Your ad hominem accusations of "magical thinking" don't do anything to further your argument. I did not say that "context doesn't matter", I said "The context of the study doesn't matter as much as the tested hypotheses and experimental design". If a study of aerodynamics opens up with an introduction which discusses the adverse health consequences of airplane crashes (i.e. death and serious injury), and then uses an analytical method to establish if the phenomenon of lift exists in a vacuum (of course, such a study would never be carried out or funded, since it is only in the realm of human health that people feel, for some unfathomable reason, comfortable proposing alternative and indemonstrable physical realities), would you consider it biomedical research because the authors chose to discuss human health outcomes in the introduction? The arbitrary context of human health doesn't change the fact that the research itself addresses more general physical phenomena and not any particular biological process. At some point, there must be a delineation between biomedical and more general fundamental research. You and I appear to have different opinions on where that line should be drawn, which is fine. That being the case, this discussion should not continue since it now becomes a matter of attempts to persuade opinion and not a matter of article content. But that's all tangential to the original point which, I think we all agree, is that the histamine paper is, without doubt, presented as biomedical research and is therefore subject to WP:MEDRS. - Puddin'head 107.2.139.27 (talk) 17:04, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

The metaphor does not translate the relationship -- It is pointless . The clearly said that they tried to investigated if a medicine or remedy commonly used in homeopathy has a real effect or not. And you are telling me this is not ....pharmacology just ....chemistry ? If we change the meaning of the words and the dictionary you might be right --- You are arguing against common sense and dictionary not against me. As I said if this paper has nothing to do with homeopathy is just chemistry why you want it included. ?

Of course the dictionary disputes what you say -- The paper you object its inclusion is just biological research and NOT medical --- so it does qualify ------this is the definition of biomedical "of, relating to, or involving biological, medical, and physical science".

It is so evident that people here will use any absurd excuse in order to make sure that papers who report any effect for homeopathy will be excluded. I have read a lot of funny things in this talk page but this is the best. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 19:02, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

The NMR paper is pertinent to the homeopathy discussion because it weakens the ad hoc argument of water memory. Ignoring the fact that any demonstration of water memory still wouldn't be evidence of a plausible mechanism for homeopathy (how does the remembered information survive the stomach, move through membranes, and elicit a specific response in the body?), advocates still posit water memory as the core of homeopathy's imagined effect. This study fails to support the notion of water memory, but it still does not address any specific biomedical claims - the subject matter is far too broad to be considered the sole province of the more restrictive field of biomedicine, regardless of how the authors chose to couch it. The findings, which are exactly as would be predicted by all standard models of chemistry and physics, simply tell us that this study does not offer any reason to question our understanding of the fluid dynamics of water, the nature of serial dilution, the law of mass action, or the manner in which quanta of radio frequency radiation elicit an inversion of nuclear spin states.

It's certainly possible that my interpretation of these papers is not going to be the consensus viewpoint. But now that Mario is arguing that a study using a simple spectroscopic technique to monitor physical chemical properties of water is biomedical research, while another paper which is studying a proposed pharmacological response is not biomedical research, I think our discussion is done. Does anyone else have any insights on this issue? - Puddin'head 107.2.139.27 (talk) 21:25, 23 May 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 107.2.139.27 (talk) 21:22, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

Well - I don't think that your opinion about the papers matter (or mine ) why do you write about that ?- Of course a study using a simple spectroscopic technique to monitor physical chemical properties of homeopathic remedies commonly used -------as the writers themselves report themselves ---- was the primary reason to make this investigation; therefore it is biomedical research - it would be a logical fallacy to state otherwise. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:22, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Does homeopathy work via a mechanism similar to that of the immune response ?

You have repeatedly been told to read WP:MEDRS. Stop wasting our time. AndyTheGrump (talk)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Voila. The proportion of cases who recovered within 48 h of treatment was greater among the active drug group than among the placebo group (17.1% against 10.3%, P = 0.03). 5. The result cannot be explained given our present state of knowledge, but it calls for further rigorously designed clinical studies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MarioMarco2009 (talk • contribs) 19:52, 8 June 2015‎ MarioMarco2009 Since MarioMarco2009 seems either unwilling or unable to end this tendentious behaviour, I have raised the matter at WP:ANI: [13] AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:02, 8 June 2015 (UTC) Hm ....citing reliable sources and responding to other editors requests is called tendentious behavior ? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 21:26, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Tagging the article with pov-check

Not going anywhere, plus main contributor has been topic-banned.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
{{check=pov}} This bias is unacceptable. Be consistent with wiki policy regarding sources --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 06:48, 30 May 2015 (UTC) Specific suggestions for changes to the article, please.   — Jess· Δ♥ 06:52, 30 May 2015 (UTC) Look above; I think the article is biased and should be tagged for the above reasons. Feel free to participate in the discussion.--MarioMarco2009 (talk) 16:43, 30 May 2015 (UTC) What happened to WP:AGF? What evidence of bias? The above discussion reflects a very reasonable concern about what qualifies as biomedical research. I'm sorry that you are upset about the existence of opinions which are at odds with your own, but that does not constitute bias nor should it bear on the contents of our article. - Puddin'head 198.11.31.34 (talk) 17:00, 30 May 2015 (UTC) Please see the notices at the top of this talk page. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:39, 30 May 2015 (UTC) Tags are not a badge of shame; your opinion is not adequate reason to POV tag the article. VQuakr (talk) 18:02, 30 May 2015 (UTC) Well.... It is amusing to me ; you rejected all the reliable sources which report positive for homeopathy . Furthermore you want to give the false impression that no editor disputes its neutrality-- thats why you don't want the tag. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 20:02, 30 May 2015 (UTC) The problem isn't with the editors here - the problem is with the lack of quality in the pro-homeopathy literature which leaves very little of it satisfying WP policies. - Puddin'head 198.11.31.34 (talk) 20:11, 30 May 2015 (UTC) The 'sources' you have brought were simply no good. Multiple editors have told you that. You cannot seem to understand our policies, or simply don't want to. People have been more than patient with you. Dbrodbeck (talk) 21:00, 30 May 2015 (UTC) You have to explain why the Lancet or annals of internal medicine are not good ------Maybe majority can over rule wiki policies and common sense ? Maybe the Lancet is not a good source when it reports differently on homeopathy - : all the above is good research in reputable sources and all are censored.--MarioMarco2009 (talk) 21:11, 30 May 2015 (UTC) This is classic WP:IDHT and an excessive waste of everyone's time. Cannolis (talk) 21:24, 30 May 2015 (UTC) Reading the Lancet and the other sources I cited might be waste of time--- as long as they don't concur with the current point of view. This kind of "neutrality" always puzzled me. That's why I m asking for more people to be involved and checked its neutrality not the same. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:34, 31 May 2015 (UTC) According to this [14] there are over 900 Wikipedia contributors watching the article. Which rather suggests that people have no wish to be 'involved' in a facile debate concerning a gross misunderstanding of multiple Wikipedia policies. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:43, 2 June 2015 (UTC) If you give them some time they might see it. If you keep it secret maybe not. You have to give reasons for what you said, --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 17:49, 2 June 2015 (UTC) If you go back through the talk page archives, you'll see that ample eyes have been checking for POV. There's no "secret" here. --NeilN talk to me 17:52, 2 June 2015 (UTC) Ample eyes ? And they found nothing ? Oh dear. How I did not see that ?--MarioMarco2009 (talk) 18:54, 2 June 2015 (UTC) AndyTheGrump put it very well. I suspect that many, like myself, just don't bother to repeat what you've already been told so many times. They can see it won't affect your thinking. You exhibit classic IDHT behavior. You may "hear" what's written, but you don't drop your beliefs and accept the interpretations explained to you. That's what IDHT means. It means not changing your mind. You are stubborn, and that will only get you blocked if you keep revisiting the subject. Revisiting the subject is tendentious and disruptive behavior. The way to survive here is to either change your mind and work with us, or to just stay away from the subject and edit other subjects. Many editors have learned the wisdom of not beating their heads against a wall as you are doing here. They haven't changed their minds, but they just do other things. You're welcome to do that, and that will keep you from getting blocked or topic banned. -- BullRangifer (talk) 02:45, 3 June 2015 (UTC) You're right! As a member of the cabal, I've hidden your comments so none of the 900 editors with this page watchlisted will notice this discussion! It's part of a secret anti-science campaign at the heart of wikipedia to suppress the truth, but you've found us out! Seriously, Marco, you've received some very good advice on your talk page (and here). WP:IDHT and WP:TE were written for a reason, but no editor engaging in those behaviors ever thinks it applies to them. You can seek WP:DR if you'd like, but I'm telling you honestly, if you keep pursuing this without heeding the advice of any of your peers, you will just end up sanctioned. I'd suggest taking a break for a bit and coming back in the future, once you're more accustomed to our policies. I'm not saying that because I want to suppress "the truth", I'm saying it because I don't want to see you blocked. Either way, I think it's safe to say this topic has come to an end.   — Jess· Δ♥ 02:17, 3 June 2015 (UTC) You know that the 900 editors who are watching are part of the "rational skepticism " trend --- they have decided what is homeopathy even before they read what the reliable sources say. Too much work. Most of the people who support the point of view of this article have not even read the sources -- I would easily give you examples --- It is easier to try to find absurd excuses for the exclusion of reliable sources when they do not support your point of view. No matter how against wikipolicy these are excuses are, the majority will accept them as reasonable. Many people have disputed the neutrality of this article , the article is locked pretending that there is vandalism but you do not want to show with tag that there is such a dispute. You say maybe we can make people believe that there is not dispute here and everybody agrees ---after all the views in the talkpage are limited compared with those to the article. To be honest with you I do believe that yourself don't agree with what everything the article says but you have to support the politically correct "science" --so to speak --- crowd to "survive" here. Hey this is almost a compliment. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 19:16, 4 June 2015 (UTC) This is not a forum, and your exercises in mind reading are of no relevance here. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:28, 4 June 2015 (UTC) IF this is your only objection to what I wrote - you seem to agree with everything else - I said. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 02:40, 5 June 2015 (UTC) I will not continue this thread but you cannot hide it the discussion pretending is not helpful to the article- I provided plenty of reliable first rate sources--MarioMarco2009 (talk) 03:01, 6 June 2015 (UTC) MarioMarco2009 (talk · contribs) has a total of 216 edits since starting in January 2015. Of those, 8 are to this article, and 193 are to this talk page. Please see WP:SPA and WP:HERE. Johnuniq (talk) 03:06, 6 June 2015 (UTC) Oh my god you got me - and I was trying to hide it . Oh well. --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 05:34, 6 June 2015 (UTC) The funny thing is, I hatted the section for his benefit. Nonetheless, let's hold off on ANI for a moment. Mario said he won't continue pushing this topic, and hopefully we can take him at his word, and continue editing productively.   — Jess· Δ♥ 04:00, 6 June 2015 (UTC) For my benefit? With the title not "helpful for the article"? OK. Happy editing.--MarioMarco2009 (talk) 05:34, 6 June 2015 (UTC) Reputable physical chem, research is avaliable above is good research in reputable sources and all are censored.--Zetetic1500 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.153.224.107 (talk) 05:58, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Homeopathy is to Modern Medicine as what Alchemy is to Chemistry

Doesn't appear to be anything useful here. Black Kite (talk) 20:32, 9 June 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
"like cures like" is an example of how vaccines work and that of anti-venom — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.37.244.196 (talk) 13:18, 8 June 2015 (UTC) The Root of All Health (talk) 13:25, 8 June 2015 (UTC) No, it isn't. -Roxy the black and white dog™ (resonate) 13:32, 8 June 2015 (UTC) To elaborate a bit, the mechanism of how the immune response works is understood in elegant detail. The concept of "like-cures-like" as applied by hoemeopaths has never been demonstrated to be anything more than a platitude of wishful thinking. If you want to suggest changes to our article to suggest any connection between homeopathy and the adaptive immune response, you will need to find specific literature references which demonstrate that homeopathy works via a mechanism similar to that of the immune response. We're not just talking about remarks in the literature which suggest that they are the same thing, but proper evidence which demonstrates that they are the same thing. - Puddin'head 107.2.139.27 (talk) 13:52, 8 June 2015 (UTC) To be fair, sympathetic magic is fairly well understood. It just doesn't work. If it did, every Christian taking communion would become Christ-like. See The Golden Bough at Chapter 3. "Sympathetic Magic". Section 2. "Homoeopathic or Imitative Magic", and Chapter 51. "Homeopathic Magic of a Flesh Diet". 1922 edition here or 1900 edition at HathiTrust.LeadSongDog come howl! 20:02, 8 June 2015 (UTC) I dont see any studies about sympathetic magic published in reliable sources . Do you? --MarioMarco2009 (talk) 20:29, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

More ad-hoc excuses in "Guerrilla" "Skepticism"

"but I don't think we should waste too much space on it since it doesn't speak directly to the efficacy of homeopathy and, as noted by the authors of such papers, can not be conclusively construed as evidence of anything."

Why not? In the water memory article is pertinent publish the Russian, French, Chinese and Italian papers about of water memory effect? Why not? Homeopathy is onle efficacy? But, the article shown this point "Evidence and efficacy". What does mean "evidence" for the guerrilla skepticism? Why refer the some water memory experiments? Why exclude this experiments? Anothe example: "However, the explanations are offered by nonspecialists within the field, and often include speculations that are incorrect in their application of the concepts and not supported by actual experiments" Really? This shown the oppose, or this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.179.174.174 (talk) 03:12, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Corruption

A one user says:

"Because the first paper is an NMR study of water looking for differentiating signals between negative controls and samples containing iteratively diluted solutes - that's physical chemistry. There are no biomedical claims being made, they are just looking for NMR signals and there is nothing remarkable about their findings. The second paper (the primary one in question here) is suggesting a biological response to water previously exposed to histamine"

Wikipedia includes this: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00114-009-0569-y

But, omits this:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00114-009-0569-y

Why?

• That's the same link twice. Black Kite (talk) 06:12, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm assuming you are referring to this article as a comparator with the one you have linked. Here's my perspective on the issue:

A) The way you have titled this section indicates that you are ignoring WP:AGF, so you are less likely to get a favorable response here. B) You may want to consider the fact that the editors here haven't vetted the entire literature on everything referencing homeopathy. They haven't picked out the articles they wanted with some nefarious agenda in mind; it's entirely possible that no one has dug up the article you are asking about, since the NMR analysis of nothing is a fairly obscure niche market. C) I agree that the article you are bringing isn't really biomedical research and should be considered on the same footing as the other NMR paper which is referenced in our article.

However, the conclusions of the paper are not very compelling (seeing how they didn't observe anything of interest in most of their experiments) and the authors point out that there are several reasonable variables that are based in real physics (and not imaginary physics) which can explain their results and which were not appropriately controlled for. I personally don't object to mentioning that people have found unexpected results when applying simple analytical techniques to the observation of water, but it should be pointed out that these results are not conclusive, do not really speak to any mechanism of how homeopathy could possibly work (it takes a lot more than just "water memory"), can be explained away through any number of perfectly rational and theoretically sound confounders (as acknowledged in your paper), are contradicted by other studies which find exactly what the theory behind the analytical technique would predict, and represent considerable publication bias since most people don't bother looking for barely (if at all) significant anomalous results on account of the techniques being used in countless contexts where they are perfectly predictive and agree with the theory. In other words, the overwhelming body of evidence argues against the existence of any magical new physics governing NMR spectroscopy and is inferred by the daily and worldwide use of these techniques without the appearance of inexplicable results - and when aberrant signals do show up, they can generally be explained away in complete agreement with the theory behind the technique. It's like people pointing out a blurry orb in a photograph as proof of the existence of ghosts when there are countless real-world explanations for blurry orbs showing up on film.

That all seems like an extraneous amount of information, so others are going to need to opine on this. - Puddin'head 64.58.20.99 (talk) 18:36, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

On the question of the applicability (or not) of MEDRS—we should be extremely cautious. There are potential pitfalls for the unwary. As with the broader question of the 'reliability' of sources, the reliability of sources for medical topics (and the question of whether or not WP:MEDRS' standards should be considered in evaluating a particular source) depends both on the source at hand and on how the source is intended to be used. This is Reliable Sources 101, and is right at the top of WP:RSN, called out in a boxed bullet list with a big yellow title line.

While the papers' methods and results are purely physical chemistry, I suspect that here and in the context of this particular Wikipedia article they would be used to suggest and imply things about the mechanisms and efficacy of a (purported) medical treatment: homeopathy. Indeed, I imagine that the authors' conclusions/discussions/interpretations regarding the relevance of their studies to homeopathy and homeopathic remedies would be the portions of those papers most likely to be cited/quoted. (I will note in passing that cherry-picking elements from the raw results and reaching our own conclusions is clearly not an option, as to do so would run afoul of WP:NOR, WP:SYN, and/or WP:WEIGHT.)

In that context and situation, MEDRS would certainly be engaged. Using such primary sources to lend support to a medical claim falls even further short of MEDRS' standards than the animal-only or in vitro-only studies explicitly discouraged by the MEDRS guideline. MEDRS doesn't specifically address phys-chem papers only because it should be patently obvious that they are not reliable sources for medical claims. If there were multiple papers reporting consistent results – ideally summarized by robust secondary reviews in reputable journals – then we might have something to cover here. As it stands, we have a tiny smattering of inconsistent and contradictory studies, not directly linked to meaningful results in biochemical, animal, or human trials. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 22:05, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

Excuse me, Sir. The conclusiones of the Naturwissenchaften is very compelling in comparison to the Anick study. The first and second study are double blind and randomized. If the Naturw. study do not compelling, please check the Anick study. There is not compelling in the negative sense: "The method did reveal the presence of some small common organic molecules, at levels deemed too low to be problematic". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.153.175.31 (talk) 02:23, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Ten, it's nice to have a real discussion on this point, so thanks for chiming in. I agree with your assessment of the complexity here and I'll concede that some of my caveats would qualify as OR. However, I don't want to lose sight of the fact that the authors point out that there are potentially perfectly reasonable explanations for the results they observed, and that this conclusion is no less important than the observation of unpredicted signals in the NMR. They conclude that:

"No conclusive explanation for these phenomena can be given at present. Possible hypotheses involve differential leaching from the measurement vessel walls or a change in water molecule dynamics, i.e., in rotational correlation time and/or diffusion. Homeopathic preparations thus may exhibit specific physicochemical properties that need to be determined in detail in future investigations."

and

"In order to securely exclude unintended artifacts (e.g., influences from the dilution or measurement vessels) and also to achieve a precise characterization of single dilution levels, it will be necessary to replicate the findings in several independent production lines..."

So their conclusions are that they saw unpredicted NMR signals - they do not conclude that this is evidence of water memory. That being said, I defer to you and the other more experienced editors to suss out the appropriateness of these sources and their relation to WP:MEDRS. - Puddin'head 64.58.20.99 (talk) 15:43, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

More ad-hoc excuses. The "lack" of explanation not exclude the experimental anomalous data. This data is obvious related to water structure in macro level, i.e. T1 and T2 quantum time relaxation motion of water molecules. The 2011 replication study is here. The conclusion: "Thus, experimental evidence accumulates that highly diluted homeopathic preparations, that is, diluted beyond the Avogadro limit, exhibit particular physicochemical properties different from shaken pure solvent." Another example of physical chemitry high quality NMR study is here., in this double blinded procedure and atmospheric control is controled, now the data is conclusive: "Coming back to Montagnier's paper, our successive NMR studies since 2004 argue for the presence of nanosized super-structures in high dilutions prepared under strong agitation, which seem to develop more upon dilution and are destroyed after heating.". Well, more on the Russian independent replication, the results is conclusive: "The formation of nanoasasociates is a major factor controlling the physico-chemical and, probably, specific biological properties of diluted aqueous solutions. Thus, the formation of nanoassociates can provide a key to understanding the behavior of highly diluted aqueous solutions." This conclusiones is coherent with the russian scientists in the past decade on radiation and ultra low dose (i.e. "PHYSICO-CHEMICAL REGULATION SYSTEM OF LIPID PEROXIDATION AND ITS ROLE IN PATHOLOGICAL PROCESSES. ROLE OF THE LOW IRRADIATION EFFECT").If exclude any positive data = Cherry picking, corruption and bias. Look the Guerrilla skepticism is funded by James Randi Educational Foundation. Im not surprised. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.179.175.178 (talk) 01:29, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Welcome aboard! It's nice to see an anonymous editor's first ever Wikipedia post showing up here a day after Mario was banned - he would be proud to see you carrying on the fight.

Your first paper does not describe a replication of the NMR study, but looks at UV absorption of ultradilute samples. Your second paper is also not a replication, as it describes different experiments than those being discussed above. The Russian paper is also not a replication. It appears to be a review of just about every analytical technique except NMR. It has no experimental section, never mentions the word "control" in reference to any experiment, and makes multiple references to dilutions in the milli, micro, and nano molar range, none of which speak to ultradilute homeopathic preparations. Could you point out some specific homeopathy relevant claims in that one? They seem to be using the term "ultradilute" very loosely. As I recognized above, there are lots of articles out there that report anomalous (or at least unpredicted) signals when using just about any analytical technique. I am not opposed to mentioning the existence of such findings along side our mention of findings which contradict them, but I don't think we should waste too much space on it since it doesn't speak directly to the efficacy of homeopathy and, as noted by the authors of such papers, can not be conclusively construed as evidence of anything.

Keep in mind, this whole thread on NMR just reflects one man's (my) opinion - other editors have yet to opine on the issue and may have other WP concerns with the material (or they may just want to include it in the article). - Puddin'head 198.11.28.174 (talk) 03:41, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Its very sad, well, but in the Russian paper is very clear on this statement "in low concentration aqueous solution, which were prepared by serial dilution." And serial dilution and low concentration is the same of homeopathic technique, in all paper the molar solution is 10E9, and 10E-23 solutions, 10E-23 is beyond the Avogadro number. The replication is the nanoassociates in all papers. Another paper on the russian scientist is this: Effect of Ultralow Concentrations and Electromagnetic Fields. Another paper,more, and more, and more, and mooore. The above cited experiments is about of ultradilute homeopathic preparations. And, this is a straw man: "as noted by the authors of such papers, can not be conclusively construed as evidence of anything." Please, feel free and cite the authors statements. For the ultradilute support, please visit the presentation and see the references. 189.179.175.178 (talk) 01:29, 11 June 2015 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.153.245.175 (talk)

This is starting to sound familiar. What exactly are you suggesting for the article? You came up with a source and I pointed out some concerns while acknowledging that there may be room for mentioning your source or at least the existence of others like it. You then chose to redefine the meaning of the word "replication" and rattled off three more papers that did not replicate the first, but simply stand as more examples of an already ceded point. Your original article states this in the abstract:

"No conclusive explanation for these phenomena can be given at present."

This paper states the following in the conclusions:

"The exact nature of these properties is not yet known..."

So it would appear that authors of this literature do recognize that their findings are not conclusive. It is also clear that other authors have published negative findings when using similar experimental approaches. Instead of digging up every paper you can find as an example of the results you are interested in, a practice which is not accomplishing anything since it has already been acknowledged that the literature exists, please come up with a specific change for our article based on specific reference(s) and then deal with the critiques of the reference(s) you have chosen. You're not really arguing with me on this; we just need some input from other editors on what changes, if any, should be made. I do find it interesting that these sorts of papers were being called biomedical research a little while back in efforts to exclude them, but are now being posited as not subject to WP:MEDRS in an effort to include them. A little consistency would help us all to work through this. Finally, as a bit of advice, the convenient redefining of terms, failure to address direct criticism of sources by simply listing new sources, claims of a James Randi conspiracy, aggression right out of the gate, and, frankly, the misidentifcation of logical fallacies when leveling accusations against another editor are the exact same sorts of behaviors that got Mario blocked. Please try to keep it civil and on topic.EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 15:54, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Huge, the pseudoconspiration or the real "conspiration": "The English guerrilla skepticism project has been amazingly successful in the last year. With only a handful of active editors, we have created many new pages, re-written many more, and acted as police just about everywhere." Well, this is from web. Oh, my god, the esay discourse of Rational Wiki, well "conspiracy" is woo, and agressive languague: "Since Wikipedia policies actually require that pseudoscience and other fringe views be marginalized, the group's work was completely in sync with the encyclopedia's goals.". Hum, if the excuse is "but are now being posited as not subject to WP:MEDRS in an effort to include them", this is suspect. In the other hand, the replication is about the nanoassociates, independent of device (NMR relaxation, H NMR, calorimetry, electric dispersion, and more). The results is, in practical sense, the same. In the article of "No conclusive explanation for these phenomena can be given at present", this precludes the phenomena? the phenomena does not exists for the lack of explanation? Wow, this is gret and big, biased, and ad-hoc excuses. Is poor and null argument. Sad, very sad. Wikipedia Randi, opens the ban, censorship and ad-hoc excuses. James Randi is here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.179.174.174 (talk) 03:04, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Argumentum ad gibberishium is not one of the pillars of Wikipedia. Please suggest specific changes for our article and source them. This is not a forum for you rant about... well... whatever it is you're ranting about.EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 04:52, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Homeopathy preparation

When the reference I gave states "What does the “K” listed after the active ingredient stand for? The K refers to a method of manufacturing known as the Korsakovian method. The Korsakovian method dilutes the homeopathic preparation of the substance at the rate of 1 part of the previous dilution with 99 parts of solvent." that that supports the addition I made also the section below that titled "What does the “CK” listed after the active ingredient stand for?" supports it as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Unconventional2 (talk • contribs) 23:37, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Looking at this again, I think that the real problem is that your source doesn't really agree with what the article already said - unless it can be shown that the "fluid adhering to the walls of the vessel" is actually 1% of the content when full. And I'm not sure that boironusa.com would meet our requirements for sourcing - it is clearly a commercial website. The best place for discussing article content is the article talk page, not here, and I suggest that if you want to discuss this further, you do so on Talk:Homeopathy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:00, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

My addition says nothing either way about the original paragraph. My addition wasn’t about the Korsakovian method per se but about how it is denoted on labeling. All I was attempting to do was add a sentence detailing the use of the letter K that Boiron USA uses on its packaging, and using there sight detailing what they mean when they use the letter K as the citation. I can't think who but the company creating the product and its labeling would be a more authoritative source. I will be putting it back with a second and third citation backing up the first one. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Unconventional2 (talk • contribs) 15 June 2015 (UTC)

remedy -> solution

If the efficacy of these concoctions are disputed, isn't it better to use the neutral word "concoction" or "solution" rather than "remedy", which implies efficacy? AadaamS (talk) 20:11, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

Given that all available scientific evidence (and simple mathematics for that matter) suggests that homeopathic treatments contain nothing but water, neither would seem to be applicable - though 'remedy' is certainly problematic. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:28, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm certain this has come up in the past, probably more than once. Homeopathy does certainly have its semantic challenges - "remedies", "solutions", "dilutions" past 10^-23, and "potentisation" all suggest processes and outcomes that are more substantive or powerful than what is actually demonstrable or sensible. However, since it is the jargon of the field, it's probably best to acknowledge it as such. That being said, I see nothing wrong with using more appropriately descriptive terms when possible. For instance, I use "homeopathic preparations" instead of "homeopathic remedies" and I don't feel that there is any bias to that - it's simply a more clear description of these substances given the best available evidence.EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 21:55, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

'Preparation' seems reasonable. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:34, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

The word preparation seems to fit as it only includes the idea that something is being prepared, somehow, without reference to the properties of the result. On the other hand, as a non-English user I've never even come across this meaning of this word before so I am hesitant on doing the edit myself, as I fear that the two interpretations "preparation: something that is prepared" vs "preparation: the actions involved in preparing" might get mixed up. Otherwise I would gladly have done the edit, now I think a straight search & replace won't suffice but it will also require some rephrasing. AadaamS (talk) 20:04, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi @EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin: and @AndyTheGrump:, I have made the substitution to the best of my English ability. I tried to leave titles and citations intact. Next I think is the "potentisation" and "potency" in the homeopathic vocabulary, there must be everyday terms to use. AadaamS (talk) 19:45, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Except where used in the article to define how homeopaths use the words in the plausibility section, these seem like NPOV violations. "Potency" has a precise real-medicine meaning and for clarify should not be used in the homeopathy sense. "Dilution" works just as well. VQuakr (talk) 21:34, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Interesting material to mine

Some interesting material at [15], [16] and at [17]. In the comments here, it asserts that Boiron has been emailing customers soliciting support to influence the FDA hearings. LeadSongDog come howl! 15:18, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Homoeopathy is effective

Homeopathy (Listeni/ˌhoʊmiˈɒpəθi/; also spelled homoeopathy; from the Greek: ὅμοιος hómoios, "-like" and πάθος páthos, "suffering") is a form of alternative medicine created in 1796 by Samuel Hahnemann based on his doctrine of like cures like (similia similibus curentur), whereby a substance that causes the symptoms of a disease in healthy people will cure similar symptoms in sick people.[1] Homeopathy is a not a pseudoscience. Indeed hahnemann has told in his book of organon of medicine that in case of emergencys we need to depend on allopathic mode of treatment for the essential life supports.homoeopathic drugs are proved in healthy human beings..

Hahnemann believed the underlying causes of disease were phenomena that he termed miasms, and that homeopathic preparations addressed these. The preparations are manufactured using a process of homeopathic dilution, which involves repeatedly diluting a chosen substance in alcohol or distilled water, followed by forceful striking on an elastic body.[9] Dilution usually continues well past the point where no molecules of the original substance remain.[10] Homeopaths select remedies by consulting reference books known as repertories, and by considering the totality of the patient's symptoms, personal traits, physical and psychological state, and life history.[11]

Homeopathy is not a plausible system of treatment, as its axioms about how drugs, illness, the human body, liquids and solutions operate are contradicted by a wide range of discoveries across biology, psychology, physics and chemistry made in the two centuries since its invention.[7][12][13][14][15] Although some clinical trials produce positive results, with the World Health Organisation support homeopathy to conduct more clinical trials in the treatment of severe diseases such as HIV .

references:materia medicas pura by dr samuel hahnemann,the chronic diseases by samuel hahnemann,organon of medicine by dr samuel hahnemann,lectures on homoeopathic philosophy by dr jt kent — Preceding unsigned comment added by Akhilssbhms (talk • contribs) 12:58, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Are you proposing a change to the article? and if so, please phrase it as "I'd like to change X with Y" with a list of sources to backup that request. Thanks --McSly (talk) 13:12, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Louis Rey

Again, there is nothing medical about saying that homeopathic dilutions are not just water, so MEDRS does not apply here. Thus there seems to be nothing wrong with using this source. Everymorning talk 00:39, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

What does the source have to say on the subject of homeopathy? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:40, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

It pertains to the issue of homeopathic dilutions. The source examined homeopathic dilutions of salts using thermoluminescence and found that "despite their dilution beyond the Avogadro number, the emitted light was specific of the original salts dissolved initially." This means they were different from pure water. Everymorning talk 00:45, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Does the word 'homeopathy' occur in the source? And if so, in what context? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:47, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Incidentally, you are citing a 12-year-old primary study. Can you provide further sources indicating that the findings have been replicated? Per WP:FRINGE, including such an extraordinary claim on the basis of a single paper would seem questionable, I would have to suggest. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:51, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of attempted replications. However I was able to find this. I don't have access to the full text, however, and I'm not sure whether its results are positive just based on the abstract. Also, the connections to homeopathy tend not to be made in the paper itself but in news coverage of it, like New Scientist (added in my edit) and Nature News. Everymorning talk 01:05, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

New Scientist reports it as a 'claim' - and presumably reports it at all because it is extraordinary. I'd have thought that if such a finding had been replicated, it would surely have been reported on in secondary sources, given just how implausible it seems. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:21, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

Everymorning, that source says that no statistically significant difference was found, and they hypothesized that the timing of the experiments could play a role in whatever differences that might exist. The end of the New Scientist article suggested that impurities may be the culprit and noted that the experiments were not double-blinded. In any case this is heavy water, which has little connection to homeopathy anyway. In Wikipedia terms the issue here is WP:REDFLAG. Manul ~ talk 01:44, 25 June 2015 (UTC)

History

I think the present article is weak in the area of the history of homeopathy and could be improved by (at the least) including some reference to Wilhelm Heinrich Schüßler and the debates and evolution of ideas over more than a century. I'm not part of some "Schussler fan club" but that stream of homeopathy (a smallish set of Biochemic tissue salts and perhaps 3X to 12X dilution) was a significant part of the history in the mid-late 20th Century. There is a risk that, without the historical context, the article may give readers the impression the homeopathy is essentially dilution-to-the-point-of-nothing-left and devoid of debates and "splinter groups" with quite a few differences between them.

At the minimum, the paragraph beginning "Not all homeopaths advocate high dilutions" could do with pointing out that it is not just the degree of dilution that has been a point of difference but the list of which substances to use, along with quite significant approaches to what homeopathy is. Maitchy (talk) 00:49, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Hi Maitchy, just a reminder - you're more likely to get a quick response if you list new topics at the end of the page instead of in the middle amongst already settled discussions.

This starts to get into the current phenomenon of labeling non-homeopathic preparations as homeopathic, simply on account of how they were made. There are a variety of products on the market which list "1X" or "2X" dilutions of an active ingredient and claim that it is homeopathic. This is just normal pharmacology at that dilution and appears to be nothing more than an attempt to skirt regulation. Unfortunately, it also leads to consumers assessing that homeopathy actually works simply on account of loose labeling laws. What must be recognized is that succussion of a concentrated solution is no more expected to affect the pharmacological activity of the substance than succussion of an ultra-dilute preparation is expected to impart activity. In other words, just as much as a spade is not a shovel, a shovel is not a spade. Indeed, one must wonder how the "proving" was carried out when the concentrated preparation is used as the treatment - isn't the concentrated substance supposed to cause symptoms of the disease? Instead of listing every historical attempt to co-opt the term "homeopathy" by people who are trying to conveniently redefine it to serve whatever end (and pass it off as legitimate debate), I think our article should simply point out the current practice of mislabeling concentrated solutions as homeopathic as the sheer flimflam that it is. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 14:38, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

The Biochemic tissue salt article fails to meet the WP:GNG notability guideline and so I have nominated it for deletion, participate in discussion here. AadaamS (talk) 05:57, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

Looking at the other articles and the sources they cite the principle behind "tissue salts" seems entirely different from homeopathy, being based on the idea of deficiencies, or perhaps "imbalances", of particular salts rather than symptoms. Schuessler's idea seems to have involved administering a remedy to address alleged deficiencies, while homeopathy would try to select a remedy alleged to cause similar symptoms to those exhibited by the patient. The only thing they seem to have in common is the use of "potentised" remedies. And if you want to include information about tissue salts being "a significant part of the history in the mid-late 20th Century" you will need RS for this - it seems to have been a rather obscure offshoot (see AadaamS's comment on the Articles for deletion page). Brunton (talk) 08:03, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

FDA section

I've chopped it down quite a bit, but I think it's still a bit wordy (and UNDUE, to be honest). We should be able to cover this in a paragraph. I'll have another look at it later, but if anyone else can do anything with it, go for it. Black Kite (talk) 11:21, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Contradictory information in the lead

Regarding this change sourced to Jonas et al,[18]

Three independent systematic reviews of clinical trials of homeopathy reported that it appears to be more effective than placebo, while another review found the evidence compatible with it being no more effective than placebo.

The first citing paper from Google Scholar says "the measurable effects tend to be greater with smaller samples and in lower-quality trials", with citation to Jonas et al.[19]

Elsewhere the lead is clear that homeopathy is no better than placebo. Reporting the few positive reviews in the lead, especially without noting the problem of small sample sizes and poorer controls, is undue when weighed against the rest of the literature. WP:REDFLAG comes into play. (The Jonas paper is also twelve years old.) Manul ~ talk 00:03, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Agreed. Arbitrarily quoting from one review which compares 4 other reviews, while ignoring the bulk of the literature and the repeatedly acknowledged shortcomings of studies that find positive results (small sample size, poor quality, etc.) is certainly in violation of WP:UNDUE. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 04:23, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

There must be more than 4 studies out there so only using 4 hardly constitutes presenting the majority view of the medical expert community. AadaamS (talk) 06:51, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

The sentence added to the lede is a direct quotation from the abstract of the review. The text of the review itself is rather more nuanced in its discussion of the systematic reviews, concluding its discussion of them with the comment that because of various factors it is "impossible to draw definitive conclusions" from them. This has often been discussed here in the past, by the way, as a search of the archives for the phrase "three independent systematic reviews" will confirm. Brunton (talk) 08:16, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

The lead states that "Although some clinical trials produce positive results, systematic reviews reveal that this is because of chance, flawed research methods, and reporting bias." The implication is that the systematic reviews of homeopathy are all negative. That is not true, as Jonas et al. demonstrated, and so this sentence should be reworded to more accurately reflect the literature. Everymorning talk 11:45, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

How about "...multiple systematic reviews indicate that this is because of chance..."? The solution surely is not to cherry pick a single review and quote it out of context. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 16:13, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Good idea, I've boldly made that change. Everymorning, I've looked at several of your edits to the article, and they often appear to be framing homeopathy as debatable or possibly plausible (e.g [20][21]). As mentioned in this thread and the previous thread #Louis_Rey, this is a matter of WP:REDFLAG and disproportionate WP:WEIGHT. The article can't suggest a false balance that would be reminiscent of "teach the controversy". Manul ~ talk 19:11, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

units of concentration in the article

As we are writing for the layman reader, I think the use of the homeopathic dilution scale is unsuitable, shouldn't we just mention that homeopaths have their own terminology and scale but the article could otherwise refer to concentrations like 1:10⁶ and so forth. AadaamS (talk) 06:25, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

I fear the layman will have just as much difficulty with exponents and scientific notation. The article should be as clear as possible in defining C, X, D and so forth, but I don't know that the terminology should be changed. 24.12.123.170 (talk) 16:16, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

The random layman is more likely to have come across scientific definitions of concentrations, like concentrations in the Wikipedia article than homeopathic concentrations. Science is a lot more widespread than homeopathy. There should be a section that briefly explains the concentration scale and otherwise refer to the main article for homeopathic dilutions. So yes, I think the article should be changed. AadaamS (talk) 17:49, 6 July 2015 (UTC)

AfD: Australian bush flower essences

Hi, I have nominated Australian bush flower essences for deltion as it fails to meet the critera for a standalone article (WP:GNG). Anyone is welcome to contribute to the AfD discussion here: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Australian bush flower essences. AadaamS (talk) 20:06, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Yet another trick to disrupt the discussion. They do it all the time. --EDtoHW (talk) 22:45, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Who says homeopathy is pseudoscience?

"Homeopathy is a pseudoscience" suggests that Wikipedia is judging homeopathy to be pseudoscience. (That's how it reads to me: YMMV.) I think that changing it to "Homeopathy is considered a pseudoscience" make it clear (taken in conjunction with the sources referenced for this assertion) that Wikipedia is merely reporting the views of reliable sources on pseudoscience as to whether homeopathy qualifies as such. — Preceding unsigned comment added by John Stumbles (talk • contribs) 00:10, 15 July 2015 (UTC)

This has been covered. See the section in yellow at the top of this talk page:

"2. Generally considered pseudoscience: Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community, may properly contain that information and may be categorized as pseudoscience." EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 02:09, 16 July 2015 (UTC)