Talk:Homeopathy/Archive 62

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Archive 60

More false balance

Re [1],

Some studies have been able to replicate the results of Benveniste's original 1988 paper, while others have failed to do so.

This comes after a summary of the high-profile scrutiny the Benveniste paper received in 1988 that showed problems with the controls. The import of the paragraph is clear: no homeopathic effects have been verified. The addition above, referring to subsequent replication attempts which haven't received such attention, looks undue. We can't say, effectively, "But hey, there may be something to it after all. We report, you decide."

This is another recent case where citing a source that cites sources has the effect of circumventing WP:WEIGHT. We have to weigh sources against the rest of the literature in order to avoid a WP:FALSEBALANCE. There is also a WP:REDFLAG issue, also recently discussed.

Everymorning, would you please review the previous threads #Louis_Rey #Contradictory_information_in_the_lead. The same problems keep appearing. Manul ~ talk 18:49, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't see what's wrong with the cited source [2]. I don't think that papers having received relatively little attention is reason enough to say that they must be disregarded. The paper itself is published in The American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education, which is indexed by Medline. [3] There is nothing wrong with the source or the content other than that it conflicts with what some editors think about homeopathy, namely that it is "just water". Everymorning talk 11:17, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

The article doesn't reflect "what some editors think", it reflects scientific consensus. If that consensus is that homeopathy is just water, then that's what we say. Black Kite (talk) 11:33, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

I didn't say there was anything wrong with the Johnson paper. Encyclopedias are all about elision -- keeping things in proportion. Your comment above is similar to what you said last month, "there is nothing medical about saying that homeopathic dilutions are not just water". I've pointed to WP:REDFLAG several times since then, and sorry but I don't see an indication that you understand the issue. Would you please revisit this and other policies that have been mentioned. Manul ~ talk 13:57, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

And the same problem again. My response is to repeat what I have said in this thread and the previous ones mentioned. Everymorning, I would like you to show some indication that you understand what is being discussed here before editing further. Manul ~ talk 21:59, 22 July 2015 (UTC)
This is different. The paper I added from the respected journal Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery is a review article, so it meets MEDRS. The JACM paper [4] is also a review article. Your ideological opposition to homeopathy is not a reason to censor any positive evidence for it if this evidence can be found in reliable sources, as is the case here. Everymorning talk 22:09, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Different from what? Would you please explain why you think WP:REDFLAG, WP:WEIGHT, and WP:FALSEBALANCE do not apply here. Manul ~ talk 22:38, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Well when I said different I meant compared with the Louis Rey discussion on this page that took place previously. The reason it is different is that the paper in Expert Opinion on Drug Discovery is a review paper. [5] This means it meets MEDRS, while the paper by Rey did not, since it was primary research. I will acknowledge that REDFLAG appears to be an issue because only one source was provided, while REDFLAG says that multiple sources are needed. Accordingly, I suppose it shouldn't be included without another source, so I won't add it back in until I find such a source. Everymorning talk 00:33, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

My objection to Louis Rey was not MEDRS but REDFLAG. Above you thought I was objecting to the Johnson paper, but again my point was REDFLAG, WEIGHT, and FALSEBALANCE. Then you thought I was objecting to EODD, but again I said the problem was REDFLAG, WEIGHT, and FALSEBALANCE. I haven't even assessed the JACM paper and didn't revert it.

So ... now you are going to look for another paper that has "validated the effects of homeopathic dilutions in numerous different organisms"? If there were a fundamental change in scientists' understanding of the universe recently, then we would know about it, at least I would. There is a large disconnect here that probably can't be fixed any time soon. In the interim, would you please stop promoting homeopathy here? Manul ~ talk 01:22, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

While the abstract of the Expert Opinion paper states that:

"Although some areas of concern remain, research carried out so far both in vitro and in vivo validates the effects of highly diluted homeopathic medicines in a wide variety of organisms.",

the first sentence of the "conclusions" section of the same paper states that:

"There is no conclusive evidence that highly diluted homeopathic remedies are different from placebo;"

The article is actually just an overview of various studies that have been carried out. There is no declaration of how papers were selected for inclusion in the review and no indication that any of the material was critically assessed by the authors (giving no way to establish the risk of bias) and there is no statistical assessment of any data to establish significance of any of the reported findings (it's an informational narative review, not a meta analysis). In short, the article is nothing more than a list and brief summary of arbitrarily selected papers. We already know these papers exist, their inclusion in this review article does nothing to establish their value or further inform us on the value of homeopathy. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 17:09, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

I dont't think we should care about your personal opinion about the paper. You are not a reliable source. The paper is a reliable source. I think everymorning is correct - I support his edit. . --EDtoHW (talk) 18:17, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

And is your statement that it is a reliable source based on anything but your opinion? This isn't a vote, and if you are going to participate in the discussion, you need to explain your reasoning. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:33, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

As per WP:MEDRS:

"Broadly speaking, reviews may be narrative or systematic (and sometimes both). Narrative reviews often set out to provide a general summary of a topic based on a survey of the literature. Systematic reviews tend to use sophisticated methodology to address a particular clinical question in as balanced (unbiased) a way as possible. Some systematic reviews also include a statistical meta-analysis to combine the results of several clinical trials to provide stronger quantitative evidence about how well a treatment works for a particular purpose. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of randomized comparative (or controlled) trials can provide strong evidence of the clinical efficacy of particular treatments in given scenarios, which may in turn be incorporated into medical guidelines or institutional position papers (ideal sources for clinical evidence). More general narrative reviews can be useful sources when outlining a topic."

Since there is a concern with WP:False Balance in our article, it is important that we choose the best available evidence to support the text we include. WP:MEDRS suggests that narrative reviews (such as the one in question) can be useful when outlining a topic, but that systematic reviews and meta-analyses should be used to establish specific claims. We don't need any more articles to outline what homeopathy is and this isn't the type of article we should be using to assess the value of homeopathy (according to WP:MEDRS, not my opinion). EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 19:15, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I concur with everymorning that your ideological opposition to homeopathy is the sole reason to censor any positive evidence for it if this evidence can be found in reliable sources, as is the case here. Meds say "More general narrative reviews can be useful sources when outlining a topic" -- they do not say censor them if they provide evidence for homeopathy. By the way I see the same users who point at MEDS and conduct this crusade against homeopathy to be really active in .....creating these policies .. Is not that interesting ? --EDtoHW (talk) 21:52, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I appreciate your vote of confidence and marvel at your ability to read minds. WP:MEDRS explicitly states what sort of information is appropriate for extraction from meta analyses and systematic reviews. It also explicitly states what sort of information is appropriate for extraction from narrative reviews. The article in question is a narrative review. Can you give us any reason, in accordance with WP:MEDRS, why we should use a narrative review to bolster claims which WP:MEDRS explicitly states are to be supported by an entirely different variety of source material (which is to say, a systematic review or meta analysis)? This is not censorship - it is an honest and objective assessment of the suggested source material and an attempt to adhere to the guidance of WP:MEDRS. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 22:15, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

You don/t need to read minds to see the same users who continuously crusade against homeopathy to be extremely active in shaping the policies they are calling us to follow. A glance in the edit history ( homeopathy and meds ) will convince the unbiased reader instantly about the "game" here, Even these policies do NOT say exclude or censor info on a x topic because a review is narrative especially when this info conflicts with perceived consensus about homeopathy. They say use them to outline the topic ----An encyclopedia should inform by including notable views even if they conflict not run propaganda against or for a method. --EDtoHW (talk) 22:34, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

There has been a considerable amount of discussion as to how Wikipedia should cover fringe medical topics, and this article in particular has received much scrutiny from Wikipedia contributors. If it didn't comply with policy, you can be assured that this would have been discussed before. As the histories of both the article and this talk page show however, the only significant disagreement regarding content has come from individuals who refuse to accept that as an encyclopaedia, Wikipedia should reflect the scientific consensus on the topic, rather than 'balancing' the overwhelming scientific consensus with poorly-sourced content which pro-homoeopathy contributors wish to include in order to misrepresent the reality of the situation. In the unlikely circumstance that the scientific consensus changes, Wikipedia will of course reflect the matter in the article - but until then, the argument that homoeopathy promoters have is with science, not with Wikipedia. This is an encyclopaedia. We represent the facts. An the simple undeniable facts are that science sees homoeopathy as pseudoscience. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:04, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

In a quick glance, I didn't see any of the contributors to this particular thread making any contributions on the WP:MEDRS page. Some editors who have worked on the homeopathy article have also contributed to the WP:MEDRS page, but so have many, many others, which suggests that nothing is being written by homeopathy editors to serve their own ends without passing the scrutiny of other editors. If you want to simply complain about WP:MEDRS, you will be best served to leave Wikipedia all together, since we adhere to those policies. If you want to change WP:MEDRS, have at it, though I don't suspect you will have much luck since the policies reflect the input of a wide range of editors and reflect the practices of evidence based medicine as encountered in the real world beyond the confines of Wikipedia. If you want to make changes to the homeopathy article, please explain why a narrative review should be used as evidence to support any novel conclusions - without attacking other editors or hinting at some grand conspiracy - and keeping in mind that, the sole reason this is even being discussed is because there are NO high quality systematic reviews or meta analyses (read: appropriate sources) which draw these conclusions. The reason why these papers don't exist is no big mystery, but we are not here to fill that void with inappropriate references. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 23:33, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

people can look for themselves and decide that whether almost the same users who continuously crusade against homeopathy are extremely active in shaping the same policies they are calling us to follow. I answered your question- Per Meds ( even if in their present state) "More general narrative reviews can be useful sources when outlining a topic" therefore part of outlining of an x topic is including all these information since it is presented in such a reliable source- not to imply that this is the true. That would improve the article which today reads as anti-homeopathy propaganda and not as an encyclopedia. --EDtoHW (talk) 08:07, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely, you are completely correct, there is an overwhelming consensus among WP editors that the scientific view should prevail over the pseudoscientific view. As encyclopedians, we should not keep our readers guessing, we should present the best knowledge available about a subject and that, according to consensus, is the scientific view. There are other outlets with less stringent ideas about verifiability of information, such as Wikia, if you feel that the guidelines and rules of WP aren't very friendly to homeopathy. AadaamS (talk) 10:35, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

It is interesting that whatever sources do not concur with anti homeopathy views are automatically considered pseudo scientific --- not matter how reliable and high quality the sources are. Do you think that when they say "More general narrative reviews can be useful sources when outlining a topic" does not apply when it is about homeopathy? --EDtoHW (talk) 11:37, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

It is up to you to challenge the basis of WP:MEDRS. Now that the discussion has drifted from the quality of available sources into the realm of conspiracies, I find it conspicuous that your account was registered only yesterday. AadaamS (talk) 13:48, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

If you want to contribute to the discussion ( and not to speculations ) you have to try to respond to what it is being discussed - I asked " Do you think that when they say "More general narrative reviews can be useful sources when outlining a topic" does not apply when it is about homeopathy? I hope you have something say more than that. --EDtoHW (talk) 14:20, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

It absolutely applies to our homeopathy article. The problem is that the proposed edit:

"...a 2008 review found that in vitro and in vivo studies had validated the effects of homeopathic dilutions in numerous different organisms."

is stating that novel conclusions can be drawn from the cited paper. This would not be an instance of "outlining" the topic, but rather one of introducing undue weight. The authors did not conduct any original research, or at least they didn't describe any in the paper, so how can we use it to claim something in opposition of the best available information as presented by properly designed, high quality studies? Additionally, when the references used to write that paper have been analyzed as part of systematic reviews and meta analyses (i.e. subjected to stringent and well defined analysis), the conclusions have been that positive findings generally come from poor quality, smaller trials. WP:MEDRS is very clear that a narrative review should not be cited in efforts to supplant these more robust studies. Having to repeatedly explain this to you has become a big waste of time and is starting to look like a case of IDHT.EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 17:14, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

There is also this review. Would this be considered acceptable for this article? The journal is Medline indexed. [6] Everymorning talk 16:01, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Don't be ridiculous. It is nothing but a summary of the authors own research, on plants. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:08, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

If a review is published in good journal it is not wiki pedia editors to question its credibility. i think this is clear ( unless the editors who several of them are active both in homeopathy and in MEDS decide to change these rules ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by EDtoHW (talk • contribs)

It is an unfortunate but all-too-common problem that editors who are not familiar with the scientific literature attempt to blindly apply the guidance in MEDRS as a mechanical checklist. "MEDLINE...whirr...review article...clunk...no more than 4 years 11 months old...bing!...It's reliable for all purposes and statements, in any article!" TenOfAllTrades(talk) 18:28, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

One would say the same for your approach - Does a study provide evidence for homeopathy "bing" ----- out. Is it anti-homeopathy enough .clunk yes let 's cite.it. Furthermore, no one suggested to use this review to supplant these more robust studies and again it is not your place to judge its quality-- since it is published in a high quality reliable source you have to accept it. The suggestion was to use it to inform and to outline the topic as MEDS dictate not to state it as a proven truth. Now (talk) you seem to be calling for ....a "little help from your friends" who by the way are totally .....uninvolved ---- so you can ban whoever disagrees with you through these codes you are using are you running out of arguments ? --EDtoHW (talk) 07:36, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Again, you are ignoring the actual issue at hand. Your conspiracy theorizing is rendered moot on account of WP:MEDRS telling us how to proceed here. This is not an issue of source material quality, it is an issue of source material type. The paper is fine in terms of "quality", in so far as it comes from a respectable source journal, but as a narrative review can't be used in support of the proposed edit, which goes beyond simply "outlining" the topic. It is not an issue of editors disallowing sources they don't agree with, it is an issue of editors disallowing sources that do not comply with WP:MEDRS rules on appropriate use and more general WP policies on false balance in an area of pseudoscience. Have you even read the article in question, or have you only looked at the abstract? As pointed out above, the same paper states in its conclusions that:

"There is no conclusive evidence that highly diluted homeopathic remedies are different from placebo;"

Should we not also include this conclusion, or just cherry pick the part that says what you want to hear? Of course, if we include both statements, the paper essentially negates itself and doesn't add anything to our article. And, BTW, people don't get banned here for disagreeing with the content of the article - they get banned for carrying on as you currently are: refusing to get the point, continually pushing a previously addressed point of contention, and accusing other editors of biased collusion without any evidence beyond conspiracies. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 15:03, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

"the paper essentially negates itself" ? This is false. No one said to use the review to prove homeopathy but to inform what high quality sources say about research on homeopathy as MEDS dictate. Again you keep judging the content of the paper and you should not according to the all wiki policies you want to follow. ( Of course it is very simplistic to accept that all the editors who find this article highly biased and make specific suggestions for improvement are ....somehow all wrong and disruptive and therefore banned.) --EDtoHW (talk) 19:15, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

This is nothing more than a straw man. Would anyone else like to try explaining to ED that identifying the paper in question as a narrative review, and suggesting that we adhere to WP:MEDRS policies on the use of such reviews, is not the same as "judging its content"? EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 16:19, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

You said that the article negates itself if we include both statements therefore we should not include it. Everymorning and me now suggested that we use it to outline the topic and as MEDS say by informing readers what is the status of the research according always to the journal. --EDtoHW (talk) 22:44, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

The latest suggested source[7] is from Hindawi, a borderline predatory publisher.[8] There are plenty of high-quality sources that examine homeopathy, and introducing a disputed source in order to achieve some kind of counter-balance to the scientific consensus is the epitome of WP:FALSEBALANCE and WP:UNDUE weight. Also see WP:REDFLAG and WP:BESTSOURCES. Manul ~ talk 12:21, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

This is not a real reason and there is nothing objective about this just an opinion which cannot be used to balance the impact factor of the journal. --EDtoHW (talk) 22:44, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

Please elucidate why it isn't a "real reason". You are the first to mention impact factors in this thread. What does "balancing" an impact factor entail? Manul ~ talk 10:23, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Meta-analysis

Obviously not usable. Guy (Help!) 22:23, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

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.

Is this meta-analysis a reliable source? Everymorning (talk) 11:20, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Doesn't this study give strong evidence to the assumption that all observed treatments are equal to placebo? Nillurcheier (talk) 11:28, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

It says "The results show the applicability of meta-analyses on the data from studies with homeopathic drugs and support the results from the individual studies indicating good efficacy and tolerability of VH in patients with vertigo." Also "The meta-analysis of all four trials showed equivalent reductions with VH and with control treatment." There is no mention of placebo in the abstract (I don't have a subscription to the relevant journal so the abstract is all I can read). Everymorning (talk) 11:31, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

What do you think "control treatment" means, if not placebo? Manul ~ talk 17:24, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I think it means betahistine, Ginkgo biloba extract, and dimenhydrinate, which is what the paper's abstract says they are comparing homeopathy with. Everymorning (talk) 17:28, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Alright it appears that I read that wrong, since a placebo control is the usual expectation for these things. Looking further, the review only assesses four studies: two observational and two double-blind RCT. And Ernst says that vertigoheel is homotoxicological, not homeopathic.[9] Why do you think the review should go into the article? Manul ~ talk 17:40, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I suspect it would make the article more neutral. Everymorning (talk) 18:09, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Do you mean "neutral" or do you mean "NPOV"? Adhering to NPOV means that Wikipedia is not neutral on the subject of homeopathy. Manul ~ talk 18:27, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't think that cherry-picking poorly conducted meta-analyses from extremely obscure journals makes this article, or any article, more "neutral". The purpose of WP:MEDRS is being mangled pretty badly here. The goal is to represent accurately the current state of knowledge in a field, not to scour the literature for low-profile papers which can technically be called "meta-analyses" and then use them to rebut the existing scientific consensus on a topic. MastCell ^Talk 18:32, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

"Extremely"..... obscure journals ? What is the criterion for the degree of obscureness ? The fact you cannot pronounce it? --EDtoHW (talk) 20:06, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I fear that your involvement here is doomed to be short lived, now that you have moved from conspiracies to personal attacks. Stick to the discussion. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 20:28, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll see if I can get access to the article through my VPN when I get a chance. I'm not sure that we should include articles, that no editors have actually read, simply based on their abstracts. The conclusions reported in the text are often at odds with the summary statements presented in the abstract. Or, as seen above with Roy, vital information (such as an experimental section) is omitted, making it impossible to determine if any research was done at all.

EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 18:30, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't think should be judging the published papers for their content -- not your task here. --EDtoHW (talk) 20:06, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Yup. Citing an article you haven't read is unacceptable in any context. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:13, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Whatever research does not conclude that homeopathy is placebo - it does not qualify for some reason - I agree with everymorning it should be cited. --EDtoHW (talk) 20:06, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

So, now you're advocating that we reference articles that no one here has even read? Wikipedia policies were not put in place to prevent assessment of source materials so that you can sneak in your point of view on a technicality; they were put in place to ensure that the references are of the highest possible quality. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 20:24, 11 August 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.

Effectiveness of homeopathy vs early medicine

Alexbrn, you undid an addtion I made about effectiveness of homeopathic medicine compared to regular medicine in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a well-know fact that the regular medicine did more harm than good for patients with a wide range of conditions. Not treating the sick, or giving them sham medicine, was of course better than taking them to a hospital. This is widely accepted in modern medicine, as such I don't see a controversy in including this in Wikipedia. Heptor _talk 10:27, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, and we already have "These treatments often worsened symptoms and sometimes proved fatal." That doesn't mean homeopathy was "more effective" as you put it. It was in many cases likely less harmful mind you, since those harms were limited to wasting the patients' time & money. Alexbrn (talk) 10:35, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I wrote "more effective in the sense that it was not actively harmful". But perhaps that was a bit too lively a formulation. What do you think about what I wrote now? Heptor _talk 10:51, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Unnecessary & problematic, particularly "The result was that homeopaths often had significantly better patient outcomes than the regular practitioners" in Wikipedia's voice. Homeopathic treatments were less actively harmful than the harmful treatments, but extrapolating that into the whole of regular practice across two centuries would require very strong sourcing. I don't see the need to add anything to this paragraph on this. Alexbrn (talk) 10:57, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I am inclined to agree with Alexbrn here. Categorically describing all of nineteenth century medicine as actively harmful is painting with a very broad – and unjustified – brush.

I am also concerned that the positive tone inadvertently suggests – to the casual reader – that homeopathy represented a beneficial intervention. (Essentially we're letting our readers forget about the 'placebo control' for the thought experiment. "Treatment A had better patient outcomes than Treatment B" carries a different sense than "Treatment A had identical outcomes to placebo; Treatment B had worse outcomes", even though both statements could be factually-accurate descriptions of the same data.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 12:45, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I tried another rewrite, this time strictly adhearing to the source. Again, I don't believe it is controversial that the 19th century medicine was, in general but of course not all the time, harmful. The text should be pretty clear to a reader on at least a moderate level of literacy. Homeopathy is equivalent to no intervention (sans the time and money wasted), which is still better than harmful intervention. Heptor _talk 18:15, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

The general point is already covered in the article,

Because medical practice of the time relied on ineffective and often dangerous treatments, patients of homeopaths often had better outcomes than those of the doctors of the time.[56] Homeopathic preparations, even if ineffective, would almost surely cause no harm, making the users of homeopathic preparations less likely to be killed by the treatment that was supposed to be helping them.

The added text seems undue and somewhat promotional to me. Manul ~ talk 18:25, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

e/c - Of course we must remember that it wasn't the homeopathetic treatments that were responsible for the better outcomes, but that they were in fact "no treatment except nursing". Water, homeopathic or not, was still just water. The homeopaths of course didn't know that they had often stumbled into the best way of treating something available at the time, ie nothing/homeopathy and nursing. Homeopathy was and remains ineffective. -Roxy the dog™ (Resonate) 18:38, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Manul, thanks for noticing. I merged the additions that I made into that section. Roxy the dog, that's pretty much exactly what I was trying to convey. Heptor _talk 18:42, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

By the way, Roxy the dog. I am not an expert on the subject (which is why I will not attempt to edit this into the article), but it appears that even in the 19th century there were quite a few people who did not consider the mainstream medicine to be reliable. In Wikipedia parlor this opinion was a minority, but not exactly a fringe one. For example, Jean-Baptiste Poquelin had an interesting insight with a play called The Imaginary Invalid, which satirized a hypocondriac with a prodigious determination to spend all his money on curing himself of immaginary diseases by the means of bloodlettings, colon cleansings etc. I am not entirely convinced that Hahnemann made his discovery by accident. Heptor _talk 19:01, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Hahnemann didn't make a discovery. According to his own writings in his Organon, he made an ipse dixit proclamation based on spurious correlations and poor assumptions. I don't think there is any need for our article to go into too much detail about how it was received by his contemporaries. Current assessments using the modern scientific method do a fine job of establishing its true worth. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 19:10, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

The discovery would be that by making -- as you quite eloquently put it -- an ipse dixit proclamation based on spurious correlations and poor assumptions he could make a lot of people stop harming themselves. This is pure speculation on my behalf of course, I have no intetion of putting this into the article. Heptor _talk 19:14, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Heptor, looking at what has changed since you arrived, I see a combination of things. Is it true that bloodletting continued into the late 19th century? You added that statement but didn't give a source. Why the deletion of "opium, myrrh, and viper's flesh"? Not a big deal, but no rationale. The part I quoted above has been changed around, making it clunkier, in my opinion. The most substantive part of your changes involves the addition of the Luis City Hospital example. That should probably be considered separately. Manul ~ talk 20:40, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

Agree, the changes are clunky & not an improvement. Alexbrn (talk) 07:41, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

While we're working on this bit, I've got some concerns with the following:

"The relative success of homeopathy in the 19th century may have led to the abandonment of the ineffective and harmful treatments of bloodletting and purging and to have begun the move towards more effective, science-based medicine.[30]"

First, the sentence has some grammatical problems. I'm not sure what the technical name for this is, but the second clause starting "to have begun the move towards..." doesn't follow properly from the beginning of the sentence. Which is to say, there is a two item list here that jumps off from either "...in the 19th century may have" or from "...in the 19th century may have led to". The second item of the list ""to have begun the move towards..." doesn't make sense following from either jumping off point. While this is being fixed, it might be worth rewording the whole sentence, which can be construed as suggesting that homeopathy was part of the new science-based medicine what had come to save us from the 18th century. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 14:40, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

So doing nothing in a clean hospital had a better outcome than bloodletting and purging in a dirty one, therefore confectionery is better than medicine? I think I must be missing something here. Guy (Help!) 22:25, 11 August 2015 (UTC)

Fringe?

The material I added that was just removed was sourced to the following two papers: [10] [11] Both these journals have IFs assigned by Thomson Reuters, [12] [13] so they are not "fringe" journals. A fringe journal would be something like the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons. Thus it seems that the material added by me should be restored as it is reliably sourced. Everymorning talk 18:34, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Homeopathy in the quintessential fringe journal. For the avoidance of doubt it's even named in WP:FRINGE. Even otherwise 'reputable' publishers publish utter shit (so long as there's money in it) you know. Alexbrn (talk) 19:39, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps, but it is my understanding that there is a way to distinguish a journal that is reputable from one that is not. In addition to impact factors, there is the fact that Homeopathy is indexed in Medline. [14] Do you have a reliable source that describes it as fringe? I would also like to note that this article currently cites 4 papers published in that journal. As for the WP:FRINGE policy, I don't think that Homeopathy should be listed as a fringe journal in the absence of a reliable source that says it is such a journal. Everymorning talk 19:55, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

You're not going to find many academic sources describing Homeopathy as a fringe journal, because that's so obvious it's outside their area of concern. Something like the Science-Based Medicine site will serve you, if in doubt. For fringe topics (like Homeopathy) we need to use WP:FRIND sources, and neutrality is non-negotiable policy. Alexbrn (talk) 20:07, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm certain the Materials Research Innovations paper has shown up here in the past. The journal's founding editor is Rustum Roy, the same guy who is the lead author on the article you are proposing. He couldn't get his hypotheses published in a real scientific journal, so he started his own, and instituted the practice of "super peer review" in which a paper is accepted for publication if someone with multiple publications (such as himself) "sponsors" it. Essentially, it's publication via argumentum ab auctoritate. The paper is also a narrative (read: speculative) review. We are talking about a very remarkable claim here; it is going to require convincing data as published in high quality sources.

As for the Homeopathy paper, we have recently covered this topic as part of the whole MarioMarco NMR fiasco. No one denies that anomalous spectral data have been published. The problem is that 1) there are plenty of other papers which have been published which find nothing remarkable when applying the same techniques and 2) there are perfectly reasonable ways to explain away the oddities which do not require a reformulation of various fundamental principles of chemistry and physics. Any mention of such research needs to prominently mention the conflicting literature which makes it clear that there is no reason to believe that anything remarkable has actually been observed. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 06:55, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

This does not violate "fundamental principles of chemistry and physics" as I noted above, there is another perspective to this issue, namely materials science, as discussed in both the papers under discussion. To quote from the Homeopathy paper: "The key stumbling block to serious consideration of homeopathy is the presumed “implausibility” of biological activity for homeopathic medicines in which the source material is diluted past Avogadro's number of molecules. Such an argument relies heavily on the assumptions of elementary chemistry (and biochemistry), in which the material composition of a solution, (dilution factors and ligand–receptor interactions), is the essential consideration. In contrast, materials science focuses on the three-dimensional complex network structure of the condensed phase of water itself, rather than the original solute molecules." If the literature is conflicting, we should reflect that in our article by indicating that some studies have indicated one thing while others have indicated the opposite. Everymorning talk 12:02, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, but is obviously pseudoscientific BS (presumed “implausibility” ... I ask you!) in a non-independent fringe journal. There is no conflict in RS - to include this stuff would be to fall into the WP:GEVAL trap. We don't balance sense with nonsense. Alexbrn (talk) 12:23, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we have only Roy's word to take on this matter it would seem - and there is a clear conflict of interest (as the founding editor of the publishing journal) and an irregular publication standard ("super" peer review). He is repeatedly condescending in his musings, suggesting that mere chemists simply don't understand materials science, as if it were some big mystery. He is also defensive of homeopathy right out of the gate, stating early on that his intent with the paper is to discredit the notion of homeopathy's implausibility. This is not how science is conducted, it's how pseudoscience is promoted. The article doesn't provide any direct evidence of what he claims, but talks throughout about silicon dioxide glasses and simply assumes that liquid water MUST (according to Roy) behave the same way, without providing any direct supporting evidence. The most perplexing aspect of his writings is his appeal to epitaxy. He gives a supposed explanation for water memory, stating that solvents are known to form micro-crystalline coatings around solute molecules (though he offers no evidence to suggest that this actually happens in the pertinent aqueous solutions), but ignores the fact that these unproven micro-crystals are also going to be diluted out of existence along with the seeding solute molecules! The paper can't even really be classified as a narrative review; it's a purely speculative opinion piece. To be clear, I am not suggesting that my assessment of his writings should be the basis of any judgement on its inclusion here. The conflict of interest in its publication, the journal's use of "super" peer review, and his clearly stated unscientific objectives are ultimately the problem. Also, keep in mind that no one has ever demonstrated how any sort of water memory could possibly lead to the biological claims of homeopathy - demonstrating the one (an as of yet unaccomplished task) does not presuppose the other; so what bearing does it have here? EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 14:55, 1 August 2015 (UTC)

Your response is nothing else but a violation of wiki policies. You are not suppose to evaluate yourself the reliable sources but to inform about notable contradictions in the literature as Everymorning talk correctly points out. Every reliable source conflicting with the motto "homeopathy is pseudo science and placebo" is for some mysterious reasons not good enough for citation and to inform the readers -- it seems that you don't trust readers minds to decide on these matters.--EDtoHW (talk) 21:49, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

You are correct in that we are not supposed to evaluate reliable sources. We do, however, need to have honest discussions about which sources are actually reliable. This one ain't. Fortunately, we don't need to rely on my opinion here; WP:MEDASSESS and WP:MEDSCI tell us how to proceed. The Roy journal is not peer reviewed, it is "super peer reviewed" (on top of being created specifically as a vehicle for promoting Roy's unpublishable speculations). It is also not a meta-analysis nor a systematic review. It isn't even original research - it is an opinion piece. While Wikipedia editors are not allowed to judge the value of the research in a proposed reference, we are empowered by WP:MEDRS to assess what sort of paper it is we are reading. The substance of a paper makes it very clear if it is a meta-analysis, a systematic review, a narrative review, or an editorial disguised as science. The Roy paper is clearly the latter since the paper contains no description of any methodology for inclusion of references, it includes no clearly defined methodological or statistical analysis, and all of its arguments are based on analogies with no evidence being offered to directly support his assumptions about homeopathy. All that being said, all we really need to concern ourselves with here is the fact that it was not published in a peer reviewed journal.

It would appear that you are unclear on our role as editors when you suggest that we "trust readers (sic) minds to decide on these matters". We are not here to create a false balance with poor quality resources and then teach the controversy. We are here to determine what material is of high enough quality to include in an honest and informative article about homeopathy. Inclusion of the Roy paper would not serve that end. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 22:49, 3 August 2015 (UTC)

Inclusion does NOT mean adoption of its views by the way. But isn't really intellectually frightening for an encyclopedia editor to argue that the exclusion of a paper of such a notable scientist as Roy who is also famous for his research on homeopathy in the field will ....serve better an informative article on ...Homeopathy? --EDtoHW (talk) 12:50, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Your reverence of Roy as a notable scientist and famous contributor to the field of homeopathy does not outweigh his lack of publication on the subject in appropriate sources, nor does it establish that his opinions should be used to create a false balance in opposition of the scientific consensus. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 16:55, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The only "problem" with Roy who is very notable is that he is pro homeopathy - of course there are publication in appropriate sources ---http://www.pubfacts.com/author/Rustum+Roy -- Even if the scientific consensus were that you are implying -- which it is not - the inclusion of his views does not automatically causes a false balance --- this is a cheap trick for censorship. Another contribution to misinformation. --EDtoHW (talk) 15:03, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Please stop using this talk page to expound on your conspiracies about "cheap trick(s) for censorship"; you are in violation of WP:AGF. Also, thanks for helping to prove my point. Most of the publications on that list are Op. Eds. or letters to the editor, and/or don't have anything to do with homeopathy. The listed publications which do pertain to homeopathy are the ones we have identified here already, with the exception of one which offers the following statement as the entirety of the "Experimental" section (where the author is supposed to explain exactly what was done so that others may replicate it):

"This paper is only a note on some of these interesting new findings. A much longer paper has been submitted elsewhere on part of this work, to which the reader is referred for more details both on the experimental and the larger pattern of results."

The reference he gives in lieu of an experimental section links to a conference abstract which describes results which were ultimately published in his own, non peer-reviewed journal. So, again, he only seems to be able to publish on homeopathy under the most unusual of circumstances (e.g. starts his own journal, eschews peer review, refuses to offer experimental details, etc.). EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 16:49, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

You are conducting you own original research to decide whether reliable sources are really reliable? This is not your task here. If he is published in reliable sources whatever he says the readers have the right to know it not as truth but as a different view -- Do you think that all the journals which cited this specific paper are less reliable than wikipedia ? http://www.maneyonline.com/doi/abs/10.1179/143307507X196167 --EDtoHW (talk) 10:39, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Evaluating sources is an important part of being a Wikipedia editor, as WP:RS/N shows every day. Alexbrn (talk) 11:03, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Nope, It is not. You just have to report them according to their weight not to evaluate if they were correct in publishing a paper. This is original research--EDtoHW (talk) 14:07, 10 August 2015 (UTC).

Another straw man. The argument is not that the journal was incorrect in publishing the paper - the argument is that his research is only published in his own non peer-reviewed journal. As mentioned above, I am not opposed to mentioning reports of odd spectroscopic data as reported in Roy's other papers, though a more general statement that "some researchers have reported such and such results" would be more appropriate than a specific storyline about Roy. It simply needs to be mentioned that many other sources have reported that these sorts of results can't be replicated and that there are other, simple explanations for such results. It should also be mentioned that any demonstration of persistent structure in liquid water does not say anything about a plausible mechanism for homeopathy. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 14:27, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Agree with Alexbrn. Puddin'head is correct on this one. -Roxy the dog™ (Resonate) 11:15, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

As do I. Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:15, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Of course he is correct and all the anonymous editors here and all l the other reliable sources who cite the paper are simply "wrong" . What a surprise. --EDtoHW (talk) 14:07, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

To get back to your question about this specific paper by Roy, I must ask again - do you even bother to read the papers you are suggesting here, or do you simply skim the abstracts? This particular paper looks at colloidal silver at ~ 1 ppm and says nothing about succussion. That's a micromolar (roughly 55.5 µM, actually) concentration prepared with no magic shaking, hardly homeopathic! Simply because Roy calls these preparations "ultradilute" doesn't mean it has anything whatsoever to do with homeopathy. Please stop suggesting that we include references which you haven't even bothered to read. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 15:04, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Just an attack

Ha, Ha, Ha..

This is just an article attacking Homoeopathy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.221.250.13 (talk) 09:08, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Physical chemistry evidence of the ultra high dilution

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance: 2009: Baumgartner 2010: Demangeat

Ultraviolet: 2013: Klein

Electrical/electromagnetic transference: 2005: Jerman 2015: Montaigner

Quantum electrodynamics: Citro 2009: Widom 2015: Germano

Other parameters: 2014: Hsu 2015: Kumar

UV-spectroscopy: 2011: Wolf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.179.234.109 (talk) 05:42, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

placebo or better???

Homeopathic remedies are not different from placebo, but... homeopatich drugs have a community and many professionals to support them, placebo don't, thus homeopathic drugs are placebo emotionally and socially supported! tests that do not take that in account fail to reveal the actual data — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.84.222.127 (talk) 07:19, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

You appear to be unclear on the concept of what a placebo is but this is not the place to hash that out. Rest assured, your concerns about emotional and social interplay are recognized as the definitive aspects of the placebo effect. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 14:56, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Basic research

There is a substantial amount of basic research into homeopathy (i.e. in vitro/animal/plant studies) and I think it should be discussed in more detail. I want to know whether other editors think so too, and to what extent others think WP:MEDRS applies to experiments conducted on cells, plants or animals rather than humans. Everymorning (talk) 11:44, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS applies to sources used for medical claims, and quite rightly so. As regards reporting basic research, the science on homeopathy has been explained. (For the record, it doesn't do anything). There isn't any new science on this subject, and hasn't been for a long time. I'm not sure why you would want to expand coverage on something that doesn't really exist? -Roxy the dog™ (Resonate) 12:17, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

Actually, there is a substantial amount of research that has been published on this subject in recent years. I have recently created a subpage at User:Everymorning/Preclinical_homeopathy_studies in which numerous studies of the sort I described above are linked to. Everymorning (talk) 12:19, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS applies here fully: I don't see how these primary sources could be of any use in the article. Darkdadaah (talk) 13:15, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

No, there is no basic research into homeopathy. The fundamental doctrine, that like cures like, remains a false conjecture with zero evidence base. What you perceive as "fundamental research" is simply the pseudoscientific activity of believers looking for ways to wave away the obvious implausibility of dilution and twerking, none of it addresses in any way the belief in symptomatic similarity as a sole and universal basis of cure. Guy (Help!) 14:05, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree that WP:MEDRS needs to apply here. There are so many obvious flaws with the "basic science" research into homeopathy (the vast majority of which constitutes nothing more than unfounded conjecturing by apologists such as Roy and Milgrom). We are not permitted to assess the quality of the findings/musings of individual papers so we need to rely on WP:MEDRS so as to avoid the inclusion of obvious and demonstrable bunk into our article. 73.181.114.203 (talk) 16:30, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

To be honest, I'm sensing some fairly strong ethnocentrism here, and the racial aspects of that I find to be very distasteful. Haven't academic researchers in India and Brazil, where homeopathy is widely accepted, done fairly extensive, "basic" research into its effects? Cla68 (talk) 00:50, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Just to add, I checked a few of Everymorning's list of sources on research, and many, if not most of them were done by Indian researchers. Editors, I'm very uncomfortable with the racial aspect that's part of the opposition to these academic papers. ~~Of all the places where I thought I would encounter overt racism in Wikipedia, this is one of the last places, but I guess I should have known better.~~ I suggest we start adding the information from this research into the article right away. Cla68 (talk) 00:57, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Give the above gratuitous personal attack, I have informed Cla68 that if it isn't withdrawn within the next 24 hours, I am going to report the matter at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement, where I shall call for him to be topic-banned from all alt-med subjects. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:06, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm not accusing any individual here of being a racist, but I'm alleging that there appears to me to be a racial and/or ethnic component behind the opposition to this research being included in the article. Note that almost all of the academic research allowed in the article is done by Western academics while most of the research being censored is by East Indian academics. In other words, it looks like we, myself included, are giving an ethnic preference to one group over another group. We need to stop it and I'm part of the problem also because I've allowed this to go on without trying hard enough to put an end to it. Cla68 (talk) 01:11, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Either unequivocally withdraw the accusations of racism, or face the consequences - you cannot make sweeping statements like that, and then claim that you aren't referring to the contributors responsible for the article. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:14, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm mainly referring to myself with that accusation. Because I haven't spoken up sufficiently about the treatment that non-white researchers are getting on this article talk page, I'm the one guilty of racism. Cla68 (talk) 01:19, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

For the final time, either unequivocally withdraw all accusations of racism, now, or I am immediately going to raise this at Wikipedia:Arbitration/Requests/Enforcement. Mealy-mouthed claims that you are only referring to yourself aren't the least bit compatible with your earlier statements, and aren't going to fool anyone. 01:23, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Please notify me when you make the report. Sometimes you have to accept the consquences, whatever they may be, for standing up for what's right. And, we all here need to stop with the patronizing condenscension towards people whose science may be different from "ours." Cla68 (talk) 01:31, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

errr...no, it means your casting that slur over other people, not being accused of racism yourself. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:37, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

OK, well, I respect your opinion so I struck out the part about racism. But, I'm not going to back off that I think that the editors here are giving way UNDUE weight to Western research over East Indian research on homeopathy. Cla68 (talk) 01:41, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Incidentally, I can't see much at all on wikipedia about homeopathy in Brazil, and if you (or someone else) are interested, would be worth adding, using reliable sources such as this Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 01:43, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

'...patronizing condescension towards people whose science may be different from "ours."' YGBFKM. That's wall-of-shame bad. VQuakr (talk) 01:48, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Racism my butt. We're not playing a game of racial quotas when we find sources for an article. Sources for this article making scientific or medical claims about need to be MEDRS compliant. If it's very important for you to include sources written by Indian authors, find one that meets the same standards we apply to every other source and it will be discussed. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:08, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

The scientific method does not change by region, nor is it practiced differently according to race. What you are actually asking for is a false balance, only you want it dictated by race/ethnicity, not the substance of the argument being made. I agree that you are being racist here; suggesting that something fairly objective such as the treatment of evidence by the scientific method should be usurped by information which you favor based solely on the race/ethnicity of the person making the proposition is pretty offensive, not to mention spectacularly absurd. You are discounting the likely possibility that Indian researchers who report positive results are promoting the same pseudoscientific bunk as are their western counterparts. See? Everyone is treated equally. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 06:45, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Guys, by this point, any time Cla68's fingers strike a key on his keyboard, your bullshit detectors should be pinging off the scale. He posts this embarrassingly sophomoric nonsense to get a rise out of you. He's a junior-varsity troll. Don't feed him. MastCell ^Talk 03:40, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Looking at Everymorning's list of papers...

The first one on the list looks at a homeopathic preparation to treat cyclophosphamide toxicity in dogs. It makes no mention of statistical power and only uses 4 dogs per test group. Impossible to determine if their results mean anything, yet it's pretty safe to assume they are grossly underpowered.

The second paper is in a German journal which I can not access. Everymorning, have you read the article, or are you skimming the abstracts? We have run into this problem before.

The third paper on the list claims to test a homeopathic preparation, yet gives no indication as to how it was prepared and claims to characterize the active ingredient by proton NMR. You can only identify something by NMR if it is actually there, so we are not discussing ultra high dilutions here. In theory, you can detect very small amounts of material with an NMR if you have a few weeks of acquisition time, but generally people work with mM samples, i.e. very concentrated. With no details provided, it is impossible to determine what they actually used.

The fourth paper looks at the effect of various homeopathic dilutions on anxiety in mice. They explicitly state that they needed 42 animals per test group to achieve statistical power, but they only used 8 animals per group. Way off. They report inconsistent slightly positive results for various dilutions and see no correlation between dose and effect. It's actually a perfect example of the sort of random results one would expect when doing nothing and comparing several small samples.

That's just the first four, three of which have considerable problems with their experimental design or reporting, and one of which we have no confirmation that anyone has read. I'll keep going, but it looks like this is just more of the same - poor quality "research" which does not allow us to determine if there is any value to it. This is why WP:MEDRS exists - to filter out the garbage by insisting that we rely on meta analyses and systematic reviews. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 06:08, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

MastCell, calling someone a "troll" for bringing up a concern as serious as this one on an article talk page is a fairly serious personal attack and is beneath the august standards of this and other alternative medicine talk pages. Now, I see you all saying that the list of sources on Everymorning's user page "do not meet MEDRS." However, I just checked the first five on that list, and the journals they come from are, in this order: Food and Chemical Toxicology, Forsch Komplementmed, Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology, Psychopharmacology (journal), and BioMed Central, all of which are known academic journals or publishers of academic studies. So, did you all even check the sources before dismissing them? Formerly, you're moving the goal posts. First you all say it has to be in an academic journal, then you say it has to meet some arbitrary standards you come up with. This is why I think there's some kind of extra bias in play here. Please prove me wrong. Cla68 (talk) 06:14, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I never said anything about the nature of the source journals; don't conflate my argument with others. I am simply pointing out why we adhere to WP:MEDRS. While a list of 50 papers proclaiming to show evidence of homeopathic efficacy may at first appear pretty impressive, at the end of the day 1000 x 0 still equals 0. These papers have the same sorts of problems as do the human "trials" of homeopathy, i.e. underpowered, poor experimental design, insufficient reporting of experimental details, etc. Hell, even when someone manages to publish their pro homeopathy findings in Nature (Benveniste), reporting seemingly air tight proof of efficacy, a simple visit to the lab readily discovers what an utter shit show the whole fiasco actually was. Given all of that history, the poorly designed pseudo-trials in Everymorning's list are hardly compelling. Again, this is why we use WP:MEDRS. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 06:38, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Cla68, you are seriously confused. We aren't disputing that academic journals are RS. We are disputing that primary research in them, especially poor quality research, is MEDRS compliant. That's why MEDRS requires we favor reviews of lots of quality research, and not use single primary research studies. This is the only way to prevent OR cherry picking by editors. Can you see the difference? Are you even capable of doing so? I really wonder. SMH.

Don't keep on demanding that we include primary research, especially of poor quality. It's IDHT behavior and disruptive. Just stop it! We're tired of such attempts by homeopathetically^(tm) challenged true believers (ICD-9 293.81 or 297.1 ?, or as suggested, ICD-9 293.000000000000000000000000000001

). You should know this by now. Your credibility is pinging the bottom of the barrel, and it's about to blast through the bottom to new lows. -- BullRangifer (talk) 07:06, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

I do not have access to the vast majority of journal articles, so usually all I can read is the abstracts. If you want to say that the papers in my list have problems you should cite a reliable source that says so rather than analyzing them yourself (WP:OR). Everymorning (talk) 10:56, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Nope. I am not arguing that my assessment of the papers should influence their use. I am arguing that we need to adhere to WP:MEDRS. My assessment of the papers is merely an attempt to clarify to all exactly why we use WP:MEDRS - to prevent the introduction of undue weight and false balance based on nonsense claims. As for reading the prop0sed articles, are there any large universities nearby? Many will allow public use of their library facilities and have access to hundreds of online journals which your tax dollars are paying for. It's worthwhile looking into as the dismal level of "research" quality in homeopathy only really becomes apparent when you dig through and read the papers, the vast majority of which are just terrible. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 12:54, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Have you actually read WP:OR? It looks rather like your habit of citing things you haven't read extends to WP policies, too. --JBL (talk) 13:04, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

How do I face-palm on this thing? EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 13:12, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

Remarkably, there's a template for that.

Facepalm .. Black Kite (talk) 15:46, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

@Cla68: Racism / ethnocentrism my arse. The only ethic factor in homeopathy is that it is the last and least glorious legacy of the Raj, in that it is given a respect in India which is wholly undeserved.

The leading proponents of homeopathy come from all round the world - Peter Fisher, George Lewith and Lionel Milgrom in the UK, Dana Ullman, Deepak Chopra, Mercola and Mike Adams in the US, Vithoulkas in Greece - and opposition is also worldwide, with the best-known critic being the UK-resident German-born scientists Edzard Ernst. Homeopathy is based on conjectures refuted well over a century ago, it has never had any plausible mechanism of action and reality-based criticism dates back to at least 1842. Homeopathy is a religious cult pretending to be a form of medicine. It originated in Germany, is probably most popular in France, was weaselled into the health systems of the UK and US by True Believers and it is promoted mainly by people who profit from it, using of false, fallacious and often outright dishonest claims. The UK's "Homeopathy Action Trust" charity is run by homeopaths and exists to perpetuate the illusion that homeopathy is valid. Experts called in court - Isaac Golden in Australia and Dana Ullman in the US, for example - are found to give worthless testimony based on belief, not fact, and that is exactly the status of homeopathy in its entirety. The difference is that courts can and do ignore bullshit, whereas homeopathy is still (inexplicably) legal to sell in most countries. Three separate Government-level reviews (Switzerland, the UK and Australia) have found it to be worthless.

At the moment the leading sources of pseudoscientific published "research" into homeopathy as far as I can tell are Iris Bell (US), George Lewith (UK), Claudia Witt (Germany) and a small team led by Chikramane (India).

Guy, this is defamation: "sources of pseudoscientific published "research" into homeopathy as far as I can tell are Iris Bell (US), George Lewith (UK), Claudia Witt (Germany) and a small team led by Chikramane". Pseudoskepticism is pseudoscientific and corrupted ideology. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.153.168.240 (talk) 06:58, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

It's not defamation if it is substantiated by the publications in question. That's the beauty of the scientific method - it is an objective and universally applicable process and it's easy to determine if published "research" is following it. Stating that the bulk of positive findings published in the realm of homeopathy is pseudoscientific nonsense is simply a matter of understanding what you are reading. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 04:15, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Do feel free to show how there is any element of racial or ethnic bias in this, remembering always that it was invented in Germany and the biggest manufacturers are in France and the US. Guy (Help!) 12:34, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

The thing is, if we shouldn't include discussion of basic homeopathy research, then we should probably remove the discussion of it that is in the article already. Specifically, the section "Purported effects in other biological systems". The question then becomes, should we include just Benveniste, given how much attention his study got, or should we include Ennis as well, or should we not stop there? Benveniste's study does not meet MEDRS either. Also, I definitely know what OR is, contrary to what Joel B. Lewis is suggesting above. Everymorning (talk) 12:57, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

The Benveniste and Ennis articles aren't referenced in efforts to present their findings, but rather to present the interesting controversies which arose on account of their publication. That is a story unto itself which is worth telling here since it gives a thoroughly vetted example of the state of homeopathy research. WP:MEDRS wouldn't apply here since we are not discussing biomedical findings, but rather the high profile cases of researchers who (at least in the case of Benveniste) were found to be either dishonest or grossly incompetent. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 18:21, 29 August 2015 (UTC)

In that case, I question whether we need the sentence beginning with "While some articles have suggested...", as it is sourced mainly to primary studies such as this and this. Or if we should choose to keep this phrase, then how do we decide which experiments to include and which to leave out? Everymorning (talk) 12:04, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

If you want to take that tack, we will end up whittling the article down to a simple statement that homeopathy is useless pseudoscience, since that is the conclusion arrived at by all thorough reviews and meta-analyses. It would appear that all of the pro-homeopathy information in the article is sourced to primary studies. I prefer our article the way it is, as it gives a fair overview of the sorts of experiments that have been done and the proposed "evidence" that exists. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 15:27, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

It is necessary to cite primary research in order to provide more background to what the secondary sources are talking about. It's important to inform our readers of what homeopathy is, how it was invented, what its proponents claim, and how it is researched. This in line with NPOV since it is not being done to "tell both sides" but merely to provide context - the POV itself is all coming from the secondary sources. I believe the article accomplishes that as presently written. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:41, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Again corruption and bias

Unsubstantiated accusations of bias, all dealt with in the FAQ. Guy (Help!) 10:23, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

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.

Guerrilla skepticism is astrotufting group. I.e.

"No, there is no basic research into homeopathy. The fundamental doctrine, that like cures like, remains a false conjecture with zero evidence base. What you perceive as "fundamental research" is simply the pseudoscientific activity of believers looking for ways to wave away the obvious implausibility of dilution and twerking, none of it addresses in any way the belief in symptomatic similarity as a sole and universal basis of cure"

Sure? The paper:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=homepathy+cell+inverse

In this, Bellavite and coworkers presents the scientific view point of the similitude mechanism. Please, stop the censorship in Wikipedia. Get out pseudoskeptiks! Get out CSICOP! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.153.168.240 (talk) 06:56, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

Er... your linked article is nothing but more conjecturing and wishful thinking presented as if it were an hypothesis; it's not research. It is essentially the same thing we saw from Roy, except that its unwarranted conclusions are being drawn not from misrepresentation of basic research into materials science, but rather from misrepresentation of basic pharmacological phenomena (i.e. hormesis and "paradoxical" pharmacology) and from the primary literature of homeopathy which is flooded with grossly flawed pseudoscientific tosh (see Everymorning's list above). Again, it is an opinion piece and does not satisfy WP:MEDRS. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 15:25, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

There are two problems with this claim. First, the idea that GSoW is an "astroturfing" group is the Pharma Shill Gambit and is not supported by any credible evidence at all. Second, I don't think many of the editors active on this article are GSoW members. GSoW spends most of its time redressing under-representation of prominent figures in the skeptic and science advocacy community by writing new articles with good strong sourcing. The only astroturfing here has been by homeopathy shills like Dana "Mr. Uncredible" Ullman. Guy (Help!) 09:25, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

Guy the "Uncredible Ullman" is an ad-hominem fallacy and this is irrelevant detail. The linked article is a hypothesis of simila principle based in experimental and empirical research published in peer review journal not a JREF opinion or a popular skeptik magazine. Your ad-hominem attacks only reveals the corruption here. Hormesis is a general and unspecific effect, but homeopathy is a particular case and in this case mantains some and few similitudes with classical hormesis. It´s evidente, hormesis is not equal to homeopathy, i agree with this. But homeopathy is a special case of hormesis in more complex form and extends to the ultra dilutions.

The "flooded... grossly flawded pseudoscientific tosh" is the second ad-hominem in yout comment. Are the next paper "flawded" or "pseudoscientific"? Here a physical chemistry results not skeptik blog or rational (pseudo)wiki. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.141.20.199 (talk) 06:12, 13 September 2015 (UTC)

We get it, you are a True Believer. Come back when the homeopathists have their Nobel and the physics community has embarked on the long and arduous journey to rewriting everything we know a bout the nature of matter.

As to Dana "Mr. Uncredible" Ullman, that's not my judgment, it's taken directly from a court judgment. "The Court found Mr. Ullman’s testimony to be not credible. Mr. Ullman’s bias [...] was readily apparent from his testimony. He admitted that he was not an impartial expert [...] Although he is familiar with the theory of homeopathic treatment, his opinions regarding its effectiveness was unsupported and biased. The Court gave no weight to his testimony." That is pretty damning. Guy (Help!) 11:15, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

So? The PDF does not shown any, it´s a legal court. The credibility of Ullman no dependt of the Court, you understand this? In this case please me read the Horizon case and the Significance paper of Martin Bland. Why Wikipedia does not talk of this fraude case? Mr. Guy responds this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.153.222.233 (talk) 04:36, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

To answer your question about this paper, yes, it appears to be as much. The experimental section doesn't mention anything about replication, so we are left to assume that all measurements were taken once, with no mention of standard errors of measurements, nor indication of what the normal expected values should be. There is no statistical analysis throughout the paper as best as I could tell and, for each physical property "tested", the authors' discussion urges "close perusal" of the data, but again gives no statistical analysis. In other words, "eyeball these numbers... see! the test samples are a little bit different than the control!". Without any statistical analysis, such "data" are useless. So, yes, pseudoscience.EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 13:36, 14 September 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.

Hormesis connection

OK, the horse is deceased. Guy (Help!) 23:16, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

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.

There are some reliable sources pertaining to the putative connection between homeopathy and hormesis. Such sources can be found here, here, here, and here. In fact, the journal Human & Experimental Toxicology dedicated its entire July 2010 issue to the putative connection between the two. [15] Clearly more weight should be given to those who think this connection is, or may be, real, e.g. Wayne Jonas and Edward Calabrese. I think the sources linked above are enough to establish that a significant part of the scientific community thinks hormesis may lend homeopathy some scientific legitimacy. Everymorning (talk) 21:05, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

What change to the article are you proposing? --McSly (talk) 21:11, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

The main issue I have with the article in its current state, with respect to this subject, is that it relies heavily on this paper as though it were the most definitive paper on the subject of homeopathy and hormesis, rendering all other papers on the subject invalid, which is not true, and so, in my opinion, more weight needs to be given to those such as the authors of the papers I linked to above and their views. Everymorning (talk) 21:17, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Ok, so again, what change to the article are you proposing? --McSly (talk) 21:23, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I am proposing we change the part that says "the dose-response relationship outside the zone of hormesis declines with dilution as normal, and nonlinear pharmacological effects do not provide any credible support for homeopathy." This is sourced only to the paper by Smith that I linked to above, and instead we should reflect the totality of the literature in this area, not all of which says that hormesis and homeopathy have nothing to do with each other. So what I want to do is something that will probably be unjustifiably criticized as "false balance" despite the fact that I think it is not--portray both the view of the papers I linked to above and that of Smith as though they had, if not equal validity, something closer to equal validity than is currently the case in the article. Perhaps a rewording to "It has been proposed that hormesis may explain some of the effects of homeopathy, although this has been criticized." Everymorning (talk) 21:32, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

(ec) It took me a while to find it, but I'll quote myself from six months ago: [16]

"Human & Experimental Toxicology is a low-impact venue (in the bottom quartile, which puts it into the long tail of scientific publications). It's not that it's necessarily an out-and-out bad journal, but no researcher goes out and buys rounds of drinks to celebrate "Our paper got into Hum. Exp. Toxicol!", either. A bit of speculative wishful thinking in its pages doesn't a notable occurrence make. In other words, even if (arguendo) we were to set aside RS (or MEDRS) concerns, we thoroughly fail to clear the bar of WP:UNDUE. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 19:10, 16 February 2015 (UTC)"

(I'll note in passing that five-year-old speculative wishful thinking is even less likely to warrant attention than current speculative wishful thinking.)

I am surprised, though, that Everymorning is unfamiliar with that previous discussion (Talk:Homeopathy/Archive 60#Homeopathy and hormesis), given that he is the one who started it. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:34, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

No chance. Hormesis is a temporary inflexion in the dose-response curve that applies in a narrow (but still pharmacologically active) dose range of a very small percentage of substances; outside of this range, the normal exponential decay of dos-response is seen. A few of the more obviously scientifically illiterate homeopathy shills pretend that hormesis is relevant but even Dana Ullman seems to have dropped this by now, since it rather obviously refutes, rather than confirming, the claims of heomopathy (e.g. it is far from universal and does not appear to require the supposedly mandatory dilution and twerking). Guy (Help!) 21:39, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

I remembered that discussion, TOAT, but I started this one because the articles I am citing here are different from those I cited at that time. Also, not all of the articles in question were published in HET. Everymorning (talk) 21:47, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

You cited two articles from HET, one article from BMCCAM (which also has an impact factor of around 2) and an article from Front biosc (schol ed.). That one at least has an impact factor of 4, but that's actually extremely low for a journal that publishes only reviews. Even if we ignored the impact factor problems, these four papers...did you read them? They are fantasy and speculation. And it doesn't change the overwhelming opinion of the vast majority of scientists, doctors in research, and professional medical associations. Someguy1221 (talk) 22:02, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

WTF? What is the "vast majority" opinion of the imaginary scientists will you cite? This is not true. The appeal a false consensus is a logical and unethical fallacy. Fataly flawed.

Looking at the first paper you linked, the abstract carries the following disclaimer:

"Of note is that this model uses exposures within a measurable predicted hormetic range, unlike most forms of homeopathy."

This is repeated in the discussion section of the paper as well:

"While these studies have been limited with respect to dose-range evaluation (and do not apply to the ‘ultra-high’ dilutions used in some forms of homeopathy..."

So it would appear that the authors are simply playing the same old game of demonstrating established and theoretically reasonable phenomena and claiming that it's homeopathy, much in the same way as "homeopathic" products containing 1X dilutions of active ingredients are sold. Taking pharmacologically active substances and shaking them doesn't prove that homeopathy works, it simply shows that shaking does absolutely nothing to affect pharmacological activity.

The forth paper you linked similarly states the following in its discussion:

"We agree with Calabrese and Jonas when they maintain that, in the ‘high-dilution’ field, it is difficult to find points of contact between homeopathy and hormesis:"

So it would appear to be more of the same run around, argument ad repetition - keep saying that homeopathy is the same as hormesis, without offering any evidence to support the claim, and maybe some day it will be true.

And best of all, the third linked paper, by the inimitable Iris Bell is, as per her M.O., pure bafflegab. If you can explain to us what the claims are that are being made in that paper, we can potentially discuss if it has any value. Reading her various publications, one can't help but wonder if she is intentionally submitting those jargon smashing bits of jabberwocky in an ongoing attempt to see just how silly an article she can dupe journals into publishing. All that aside, it is just another speculative attempt to explain how homeopathy might work, without actually discussing the fact that it has never actually been shown to work.

I wasn't able to access the second paper, but the abstract looks to be a simple reduction of the third paper's abstract (both authored by Iris Bell). Looks to potentially be some self-plagiarism going on there. Not necessarily fraud, but it makes it appear as if there is a more robust literature on the hormesis connection than what actually exists.EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 22:00, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

"pure bafflegab" "how silly an article she can dupe journals into publishing" is a two ad-hominem attack. Anothe context says: ", without actually discussing the fact that it has never actually been shown to work."

An ad hominem argument attacks the person making a proposal in an effort to avoid addressing the substance of the proposal. While I clearly suggested that Iris Bell has a penchant for publishing unintelligible gibberish, that observation is not the core of my argument. The core of my argument is that the specific paper suggested by Everymorning is unintelligible gibberish. Everymorning has made it clear on several occasions that he/she does not read the articles he/she is suggesting for inclusion but instead simply skims through the abstracts. Before we discuss whether or not the article should be used to enhance our article, I would simply like for Everymorning to explain to us exactly what is being claimed in the abstract in question. In particular, I would like to know what the following means:

"Homeopathic remedies prescribed in low doses spaced intermittently over time act as biological signals that stimulate the organism’s allostatic biological stress response network, evoking nonlinear modulatory, self-organizing change. Potential mechanisms include time-dependent sensitization (TDS), a type of adaptive plasticity/metaplasticity involving progressive amplification of host responses, which reverse direction and oscillate at physiological limits."

This is particularly a concern since the title of the paper in question is:

"A model for homeopathic remedy effects: low dose nanoparticles, allostatic cross-adaptation, and time-dependent sensitization in a complex adaptive system"

How can anyone possibly know, from reading an unintelligible abstract, if Bell is describing a hypothetical model (like Milgrom's silly entanglement model) or a real quantitative model of a physical phenomenon? I'll give you a hint - given that the physical phenomenon in question has never been demonstrated to actually occur, and that all explanations for how it might work ignore fundamental laws of chemistry and physics, the paper is unquestionably describing a model of the former variety. You don't need to understand all the gibberish to recognize that simple fact.EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 02:15, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

"The core of my argument is that the is unintelligible gibberish." Excue me, this is not argument is ad-hominem attack. The physical phenomen have benn demostrated in many papers. Not only in the Milgrom papers, in independent scientific articles. Their "skeptikal" argumentis is the real rubish. Pleas show me the evidence of this funny argument: "all explanations for how it might work ignore fundamental laws of chemistry and physics" All law´s of the physics and chemistry? Incredible, the James Randi Foundation are the real crackpots and quackpots. Sure, low potency homeopayhy contradicts ALL laws of physics and chemistry? How? If high dilutions contradicts the ALL laws of chemistry and physics, post one to one of laws.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.153.222.233 (talk)

We could discuss the law of mass action and the second law of thermodynamics as considerable problems for homeopathy, but this is not a forum. Please cite useful references for making improvements to the article. All of the papers brought up so far in attempts to establish a link to hormesis have stated explicitly that hormesis is not applicable at homeopathic dilutions. Do you not read the articles either? EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 05:47, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

What? The law of maas action is irrelevant in the case of ultra high dilutions. Memory of water does no contradict the second law of termodynamics. How does explain their incoherentes in the main article? All papers unlink the homeopathy and hormesis? This paper of Andrea Dei of the Department of Chemistry, INSTM Research Unit, University of Florence, Via della Lastruccia, shown the oppose. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.179.234.109 (talk) 05:32, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

First of all, your stating that mass action and the 2nd law aren't pertinent does not make it so. No doubt there are multiple papers out there with proposed hypothetical mechanisms of how homeopathy might work if it did work (still ignoring that it has never been shown to work). No one has ever demonstrated through experimental evidence that mass action doesn't dictate the behavior of ultru high dilutions or that persistent clathrates and the like are involved in homeopathic preparations - it's all speculative.

Second, I know I said I was through sifting through your "gotcha!" papers, but it's just too much fun and continues to demonstrate the gobsmackingly poor state of "research" into homeopathy. Again, I must ask - do you even bother reading the papers you submit here? Quoting directly from your linked paper:

"The copper solutions were not succussed as is usual in homeopathic preparations, only mechanically stirred."

and:

"The percentage of significantly up- or down-regulated genes was not correlated in a simple fashion with the amount of Cu added to the medium, although higher concentrations of Cu had a tendency to show bigger effects."

so, right out of the gate, we see that this is not, in fact, a test of homeopathic preparations and that the system behaves as expected with no dose response relationship observed at higher dilutions. It also clearly states that the greatest effects were seen at higher concentrations, so what of the whole "dilution makes it stronger" business? It should also be noted that microarray analysis requires very careful attention to the cell cycle of the tested cell population. The cells must be synchronized to a specific point of the cell cycle before harvesting to avoid the well known and documented phenomenon of normal gene expression variance in a heterogeneous cell population. Hundreds of genes are expected to appear up or down regulated if samples of cells are compared without careful control of the cell cycle. Your paper du jour makes no mention of synchronization of the tested cell samples so it is impossible to know if the authors even know what they are doing.

Once again, please make specific suggestions for changes to our article or stop wasting everyone's time. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 13:17, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

Sure? http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25480654 The most realible evidence shown the homeoapthy is superior to the placebo effect. The decisive conclusion awaits more research in particular disesases. The paper of Bell is not about of efficay of homeopathy, is the model of how works homeopathy using a kind particular cas of hormesis (not the classical hormesis).

Your linked paper has the same old disclaimer right in the abstract:

"The low or unclear overall quality of the evidence prompts caution in interpreting the findings."

...so nothing new here. In every meta analysis in which the quality of the individual trials is controlled for (i.e. studies which explicitly address this disclaimer), it is made clear that positive effects are only found in low quality studies. High quality studies find no effect beyond placebo. How many times does this need to be explained? EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 02:15, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Excuse me: "It is made clear that positive effects are only found in low quality studies. High quality studies find no effect beyond placebo." Only in low quality studies? The Mathie et al meta study shown 4 studies with high quality methods. Read this: -Unlike our predecessors, we found no evidence that lower-quality trials displayed a larger treatment effect than that of higher-quality studies-.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.153.222.233 (talk)

The Mathie paper you reference only found 3 papers (not 4) that the authors determined to not have a high risk of bias. Three out of 32 papers examined - that alone should tell you something. And it's not that the authors found that these 3 papers have a low risk of bias, but rather that they are not as high a risk as the others examined. All three of the papers determined to not be of high risk are small pilot studies (2 are by Jacobs et al and one by Bell et al looking at the "treatment" of fibromyalgia, a condition which some dispute even exists and for which there is no clear diagnostic criteria) which, according to their own authors, are statistically underpowered. So even though Mathie doesn't think there is a large risk of bias, the papers he identified are useless on account of not having large enough sample sizes to reliably test the proposed hypotheses. The authors are apparently conflating their assessment of bias risk with overall quality of research; these are two different things. Once again, please make specific suggestions for changes to our article or stop wasting everyone's time. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 15:12, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, the population needed to significantly distinguish a the effect of placebo "A" from that of placebo "B" will be infinite, and even then, the effect difference is so small that it has approximately zero value. The homeopath could do far more good by telling patients to "drive carefully". No special "training" required. LeadSongDog come howl! 18:02, 17 September 2015 (UTC)

Many, many many times, Puddinhead, for as long as there are dodgy practitioners conning their victims. -Guy the dog™ (Resonate) 10:38, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

The real problem is that the lack of relevance of hormesis is blindingly obvious. The dose-response curve very obviously returns to exponential decay as dosage decreases. The nonlinearity is very obviously restricted to a narrow band of dosage. You won't find scientific papers pointing this out for the same reason that you don't find scientific papers pointing out that the direction of gravity is down. Only a fool or a crackpot would claim that hormesis has any relevance to homeopathy. The handful of papers that purport to make the link are by the latter, as far as I can tell. Guy (Help!) 11:19, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Guy Chapman: "Fool" and "Crackpot" is not arguments its silly pseudodebunk. Defamation in this space is criminal attitude, I don´t see your real arguments. Hormesis is a paradoxical inverse dose-response, in other cases is oscillatory response, i.e. in homeopathic ultra high dilution this behaviour is common. Next, the presence or not of the initial dilute sustance is independent of response. The water memory explains this. Ok, you cites the Calabrasse paper, this paper does not support your logical fallacy, hormetic phenomen is very difficult of detect, this does not mean the lack of the u shaped response in some biological systems.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.153.222.233 (talk)

WP:NOTFORUM

WHAT IS HOMEOPATHIC MEDICINE?

Homeopathic medicine is a natural form of treatment whose healing philosophy and principles differ from traditional western medicine or allopathic medicine. The healing principles are to use the minimum dose of medicine and choose a substance capable to stimulate the natural defenses of the body to heal. Actually the symptoms of your disease are designed to balance an internal problem and should not be suppressed. Homeopathic substances are chosen based on their ability to simulate a similar energetic illness …to support and complete the natural healing process.

PREPARATION OF HOMEOPATHIC MEDICINES Homeopathic medicines, also known as remedies, are prepared using a technique that releases the energy locked within natural substances. • Plants, minerals or animal substances are crushed then DILUTED to a minimal dose to prevent side effects. • “Succussion” or shaking is then done to REMOVE energy from the SUBSTANCE. • Dilution and succession are repeated many times and then used for healing

HOW DO WE KNOW THEY WORK? These remedies are tested in humans to determine all mental, emotional and physical changes that occur over a long period of time. They produce reliable, temporary energetic symptoms.

Now, remedies are chosen for the sick based on what the remedy caused or incidentally cured in human studies. They have been shown to help the body overcome similar symptoms… gently and rapidly…. when properly chosen.

WHAT IS ILLNESS? Every type of illness, pain and injury creates intelligent, purposeful reactions involving the entire body. This produces what we call dis-ease…an “out of ease” state.

THE PURPOSE OF HOMEOPATHIC TREATMENT The rebalancing reactions which we call disease need support, not suppression with drugs, to complete their intended purpose. Homeopathy works with the body’s natural direction of cure.

SAFETY OF REMEDIES Since we are dealing with energy, these remedies are safe enough for babies yet powerful for healing.

YOUR ROLE IN HEALING A homeopathic physician needs to know a lot about your symptoms, sensations, emotions, past traumas, history, body type, desires and aversions, hereditary make up, how you react to stress, and your environment… both emotionally and physically. It is important for you to pay attention to how your symptoms, emotions and body change through various circumstances.

Copyright Jane Li-Conrad — Preceding unsigned comment added by REMEDYJANE (talk • contribs) 13:21, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Jane. This is not the place for your unsubstantiated advertisements; none of what you have written here has any meaning. Please feel free to take a read through the article - you may learn something.EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 14:06, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

"unsubstantiated". Incredible, the only "arguments" against homeopathy in this space is the distorstion of the papers, deffamation of researchers, and censorship in some cases. Please feel free to take a refute this paper. The ad-hominem attacks, straw man fallacies or insults is not valid. Show me the debunk!— Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.153.222.233 (talk)

You've made a lot of comments recently, so I'll just respond to all of them here. The two articles you've posted links to both come from journals with impact factors of less than one. In other words, these journals are hardly ever cited. On top of that, both papers represent a search for a mechanism behind an effect that has not been proven to exist, so at this point it's all just fantasy that any of it is connected to homeopathy. On top of that, these are just more primary research papers. It remains the case that reviews from reputable publishers and major health organizations consider homeopathy to be complete bunk. No quantity of primary publications in low quality journals is going to change that. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:46, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Dear mystery man from Mexico: I am reminded of a couple of fables at this point. First, the boy who cried wolf - instead of addressing the concerns being raised about suggested references, you continually come up with attempted "gotcha!" papers and challenge other editors to debunk them. I'd say I've done a pretty good job of it thus far. Since they have all to date been of little use and generally don't establish the claims you are trying to make, I am not really inclined to continue reading your proposals as they have all proven to be a waste of time. Matter of fact, is there a barnstar for doing other people's research for them? I'd like to apply.

The second fable that comes to mind is that of the Three Little Pigs. The more papers you propose in your "gotcha!" attempts, the more we see how thin the evidence for homeopathic effects really is - about as substantial as a fourth little pig building his house out of talcum powder. Either start suggesting specific changes for our article, and be prepared to properly source them with references which stand up to scrutiny, or stop wasting everyone's time.EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 06:31, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

"The two articles you've posted links to both come from journals with impact factors of less than one." And? In tha main article cites this article: Teixeira, J (2007), "Can water possibly have a memory? A sceptical view", Homeopathy 96 (3): 158–62, doi:10.1016/j.homp.2007.05.001, PMID 17678811 and Anick, David J "(2004), "High sensitivity 1H-NMR spectroscopy of homeopathic remedies made in water", BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine 4: 15, doi:10.1186/1472-6882-4-15, PMC 534805, PMID 15518588" How does explain this fact? Yeah, the skeptiks love cite articles with IF of less than one, but if others users cites the same journal is invalid. Wow, your incoherence is unlimited. Meec! Mr. "Puddin", why does not refute the arguments? why does not explain the incoherence of the "Someguy1221"? Your pseudoarguments are very fun.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.179.234.109 (talk)

You are entirely correct on one thing: We will accept pretty much any reliable source skeptical of homeopathy regardless of relative obscurity, but demand the highest standards of sources supportive of homeopathy. That's because the viewpoint that homeopathy works is only a minority fringe in the relevant scientific fields. It really doesn't matter how many studies you cart out here alleging to show a mechanism for homeopathy. Unless the scientific consensus is changed, neither will the article. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:27, 16 September 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.

"The continued practice of homeopathy, despite a lack of evidence of efficacy

The supporting source reads -https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1825800 Conclusion : At the moment the evidence of clinical trials is positive but not sufficient to draw definitive conclusions because most trials are of low methodological quality and because of the unknown role of publication bias. This indicates that there is a legitimate case for further evaluation of homoeopathy, but only by means of well performed trials.

It does not support really the sentence.--Neb46545 (talk) 05:41, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Agreed that it may not be the best reference for the statement in question, primarily since it is getting on 25 years old. The statement is supported by multiple high quality trials, systematic reviews, meta analyses, and government position papers, however. My proposal is to keep the text as is, remove the reference in question, and perhaps add in a reference to one of the government positions papers which have concluded that homeopathy is nonsense which should no longer be funded. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 15:36, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

I thought that per meds only published reviews are qualified for supporting statements of efficacy . --Neb46545 (talk) 15:43, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

From WP:MEDSCI (emphasis mine):

"Wikipedia policies on the neutral point of view and not publishing original research demand that we present any prevailing medical or scientific consensus, which can be found in recent, authoritative review articles, in statements and practice guidelines issued by major professional medical or scientific societies (for example, the European Society of Cardiology or the Infectious Disease Society of America) and widely respected governmental and quasi-governmental health authorities (for example, AHRQ, USPSTF, NICE, and WHO), in textbooks, or in some forms of monographs."

So we should be good. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 15:50, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

So how about the swiss report - which states that Homeopathy is effective ? It should be included? . --Neb46545 (talk) 16:42, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

The value and integrity of the Swiss report have been called into question by many sources. A published review of the report which highlights several of its many noted foibles - one of the more curious of which being that it was authored by a team of homeopaths who claimed no conflict of interest - can be found here. Besides, the more recent and more extensive Australian assessment should supersede it. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 16:56, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

According to the paragraph above wikipedia should report documents which appear in reliable sources - even if they conflict - otherwise it is one sided presentation- and it ridicules the concept of the neutral point of view. --Neb46545 (talk) 19:02, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

No, I don't think you understand the neutral point of view policy. It's meant to ensure that we present views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources. It would be ridiculous (to use your formulation) to give a single widely discredited source the same weight as the overwhelming scientific consensus that homeopathy is ineffective. MastCell ^Talk 19:16, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Don't change what I said - I did not suggest to "give a single widely discredited source the same weight" even if it has it but to include it you can also include the objections and stop pretending it does not exist. ( Besides that as an editor your are not supposed to judge what is discredited - it is a difference in opinion not really discredited who is the judge ? you? ) --Neb46545 (talk) 19:33, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

It also turns out that the so called "Swiss report" was not published as a position paper by the Swiss government, but rather as a book by the homeopaths who authored it, without the knowledge of, approval of, or endorsement by the Swiss government. The Swiss government commissioned the work, but has not used it to advise policy. This per a representative of the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health as published in Swiss Medical Weekly. So this discussion is a moot point - the "Swiss" ruse has no place in our article. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 19:44, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Yes this is correct. However, you ( plural) dismissed it--- even before this piece of info - even if you thought that it was reported by the Swiss administration and per med is a reliable source -which you have the obligation to report -. you said -no it should be censored -too positive for homeopathy. What that tells us about your conception of neutral point of view ?--Neb46545 (talk) 20:36, 3 November 2015 (UTC) -

Again, you clearly don't understand the meaning of NPOV. The fact that notable literature exists which points out that the report is grossly flawed was the first point of contention. The second point was that, even it it were embraced by the Swiss government, it does not change the fact that this report reflects a fringe point of view. The authors have done no original research in its writing, but have simply employed special pleading and the old "...but the homeopathy placebo effect is a special, magical kind of placebo effect" gambit. They have looked at a pool of evidence, which all other high quality reviews, meta-analyses, and governing body position papers have found to establish that homeopathy has no value, and spun it. Those are the concerns you dismissed without justification. The fact that the report is not endorsed by the Swiss government simply puts a nail in the coffin. Many of us here are skeptical of homeopathy. That does not mean we dismiss it out of hand, but that we see the need to actually assess the sources. I don't know how to lock a discussion, but I think it's about time with this one. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 21:29, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

This is original research from your part - You are not supposed to criticize the sources yourself but to find report sources which they provide counter arguments if they are notable. Not all reviews conclude that homeopath is placebo of course, --Neb46545 (talk) 01:24, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

See WP:REDFLAG. Multiple high-quality sources would be needed to state that something unknown to science was an effective treatment. Johnuniq (talk) 01:39, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Original research? Since you are a new user (and clearly not MarioMarco), you may benefit from a quick tutorial about how this place works. The blue text that you see throughout my earlier posts indicates a clickable link which will lead you to appropriate sources which support my statements. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 03:32, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Neb46565: what change do you propose making to the text you introduced this section with? Brunton (talk) 07:30, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

The supporting source reads -https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1825800

Conclusion : At the moment the evidence of clinical trials is positive but not sufficient to draw definitive conclusions because most trials are of low methodological quality and because of the unknown role of publication bias. This indicates that there is a legitimate case for further evaluation of homoeopathy, but only by means of well performed trials.

It does not support really the sentence.- Please remove. --Neb46545 (talk) 18:50, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Which sentence doesn't it support? This isn't clear in your comments here. -Roxy the dog™ woof 19:03, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

"The continued practice of homeopathy, despite a lack of evidence of efficacy"--Neb46545 (talk) 21:37, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Last sentence of the 3rd paragraph in the article introduction. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 23:30, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Remove what? The sentence or the reference? Brunton (talk) 08:18, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

The text in the article is perfectly well supported by the source. Unfortunately, I am unable to read anything at all in the links provided by Neb. The page is blank. Puddinghead's suggestion, perhaps for a more recent citation to support the text might help, but I see no need. The reason I asked what text was unsupported was that when I originally looked at this, it didn't seem possible that the OP was objecting to that text, so I thought I had misunderstood the Q. Lets move along please. Thanks. -Roxy the dog™ woof 09:54, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Department of Health consultation

The British Department of Health has stated that it will hold a consultation in 2016 as to whether homeopathic treatments should be added to the NHS treatments blacklist. See [17]. This is a quite significant development: if successful, it may well put an end to the use of homeopathy in the NHS in England, and may also act as a precedent for other campaigns against homeopathy. I've now added this to the article. -- The Anome (talk) 12:48, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Agree it is significant as evidenced by the mainstream coverage, and so agree it's WP:DUE for this article. Alexbrn (talk) 12:54, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

Bristol Homeopathic Hospital

I've added a redlink to Bristol Homeopathic Hospital in the homeopathy article. Hospitals are inherently notable, and this one is of particular interest, as it's notable for being one of the last in the UK, prior to its closure. An alternative to creating this article might be to create a new wider-focused Homeopathic hospitals in the NHS or Homeopathic treatment in the NHS article, and to redirect it there. I think this intersection between the British populist political battle over the NHS and the battle between evidence-based medicine and homeopathy is well worth documenting.

By the way, I note that homeopathy is distinctly missing from the treatments listed as being given at the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine. When did this happen? -- The Anome (talk) 14:38, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Update: I've now created List of former NHS homeopathic hospitals. I'm now looking for sources other than just Quackometer to fill in the details. -- The Anome (talk) 14:57, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

Update 2: I've now created Category:Homeopathic hospitals to hold these and similar articles. -- The Anome (talk) 18:02, 15 November 2015 (UTC)

Homeopathy 'could be blacklisted'

[http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34744858 Homeopathy 'could be blacklisted' - BBC -- Abhijeet Safai (talk) 18:29, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

This is covered in the article and mentioned here (above). Alexbrn (talk) 18:35, 24 November 2015 (UTC)

How can this be in an encyclopedia? Was it written by a drug company?

This article totally contradicts the evidence:

Up to the end of 2014, a total of 104 papers reporting good-quality placebo-controlled RCTs in homeopathy (on 61 different medical conditions) have been published in peer-reviewed journals. 41% of these RCTs have reported a balance of positive evidence, 5% a balance of negative evidence, and 54% have not been conclusively positive or negative. For full details of all these RCTs and more in-depth information on the research in general, visit the research section of the Faculty of Homeopathy’s website. Also, see 2-page evidence summary with full references.

The above figures are strikingly similar to data obtained from an analysis of 1016 systematic reviews of RCTs (and therefore of many more than that number of RCTs) in conventional medicine: 44% of the reviews concluded that the interventions studied were likely to be beneficial (positive); 7% concluded that the interventions were likely to be harmful (negative); and 49% reported that the evidence did not support either benefit or harm (non-conclusive). [El Dib RP, Atallah AN, Andriolo RB (2007). Mapping the Cochrane evidence for decision making in health care. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice; 13:689–692.] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.172.0.200 (talk) 14:19, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

This is not a forum. Please make specific suggestions for improving the article or move on. Several meta-analyses and systematic reviews have identified a broad range of quality problems with the so called "positive" results you claim. These problems range from improper reporting of blinding and randomization techniques to under-powered sample sizes (probably the most rampant issue). Overall poor research quality is recognized by multiple objective sources as a global problem in homeopathy research. Our article reflects that simple fact. As for the tu quoque argument that conventional medicine also has problems with proof of efficacy, that has no bearing here - the fact that horses can not fly is not proof that unicorns exist. There are more appropriate places to discuss the need for better research and stricter regulations in conventional medicine. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 18:20, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

The IP reads almost like Dullman, who has coincidentally just flounced (again) from Edzard Ernst's blog. Guy (Help!) 18:29, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Was it written by a drug company? Well, not Boiron that's for sure. Alexbrn (talk) 18:34, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

The IP is conflating reviews with non-conclusive results, meaning that either there is insufficient evidence or conflicting evidence, with individual trials having results that are not "conclusively positive or negative", meaning that the homeopathy was not statistically different from placebo (the "negative" trials in the figures above are those in which homeopathy was statistically significantly worse than placebo). Brunton (talk) 20:52, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

A core error that homeopathy shills make is to represent everything other than worse-than-placebo, as positive. In reality most studies of homeopathy are equivocal - and no drug would be approved on the basis of trials of the quality and weakness of most of the "positive" trials of homeopathy. Guy (Help!) 23:16, 19 December 2015 (UTC)

Not true of course. Many of these positive studies are published in reputable journals. But this article would not cite ANY positive study on homeopathy. This is sad for an encyclopedia to be hostage of a group of people who want to write polemic articles against homeopathy. On the other hand, it is amusing because if the intelligent reader who has some basic education reads the archives of this article or just google systematic reviews and homeopathy she will figure out that that the article is highly inaccurate and sometimes the quality of the writing and the distortion of the info is laughable. .I don't think though that most of the editors have any association with drug companies- or are evil or something - they just believe that if they censor all positive studies about homeopathy from the article they will help the world to be freed from.... quackery. It is an ideological issue. --Neb46545 (talk) 18:05, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Unfortunately, a "basic education" does not equip the reader with the ability to critically assess the evidence; that's why WP has rules. You appear to be intent on focusing on whether the publishing journals are reputable or not, not the substance of what is being said in the published studies. Reviews that satisfy WP rules conclude that there is no evidence to support the notion that homeopathy has any effect beyond placebo. Individual studies claiming positive results are all critically flawed, which is evident in the papers that people have been trying to push here for years; these flaws are why primary research is not used to inform WP articles. Your argument has reduced to a matter of pouting, misrepresentation of the available evidence, and desperate grabs at imagined technicalities. As an example of how ridiculous the arguments have become, just last month you wanted to sneak in the so called "Swiss Report" as a government position paper, ignoring that it wasn't, in fact, published by the Swiss government, even though you acknowledged that this was the case. If you have any new evidence published in an appropriate source, please bring it forward - otherwise, your commentary in contradiction of all reliable evidence has no place here. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 20:28, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia "rules" dictate that editors should report exactly what reputable journals say ----not to censor the reviews which do NOT conclude that it is all placebo. I challenge you to copy and paste the conclusions of ALL Systematic reviews who are published in reputable journals.; without summarizing meaning distort their meaning . --Neb46545 (talk) 22:21, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a reality-based encyclopaedia. This is by design. If you have a specific edit you'd like to propose, then do so, with the sources it's based on, but you are wasting your time coming here with non-specific complaints, accusations of bad faith and demands to treat the junk journals in which pro-homeopathy studies are typically published as having some kind of equivalence tot he three government-level reviews that have found homeopathy to be without merit. Guy (Help!) 22:41, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Reporting "exactly what reputable journals say" does not mean cherry picking prohomeopathy verbiage. Unfortunately, what we see here are editors who want to report misleading statements lifted out of context from the abstracts of papers they haven't even read. Pointing out that the actual text of the articles in question do not support these statements, and in fact often contradict them, is not censorship - it is simply due diligence. Our article also reflects the fact that, while some reviews manage to strategically frame homeopathy in a positive light, others use objective criteria to point out the flaws in these - like their reliance on low quality studies. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 23:39, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

obvious bias

I have never seen a more biased Wikipedia article. The editors/authors here have a crystal clear agenda to slur homeopathy. A preponderance of articles like this will make Wikipedia obsolete. 169.226.81.238 (talk) 18:12, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree, the article exclude positive evidence in physical chemistry (i.e. NMR replications of Louis Demangeat and the Zurich Technology Institute ) and select only cherry picking evidence (i.e. the "negative" Anick article on NMR). unsigned comment added by 206.172.0.200 (talk) 19:42, 18 December 2015 (UTC)

No, the article is reality based, unlike homeopathic practices. That's no slur: if published reviews of solid science showed real evidence of homeopathy working the article would reflect that. LeadSongDog come howl! 18:20, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Focus your energy on Orgone, that has yet to make the mainstream, do no-one's focussed on debunking it yet.86.147.131.172 (talk) 07:06, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

We have been through these accusations of bias a gazillion times before. Wikipedia's view of "balance" is not what you imagine it to be. Our policy is to maintain a "Neutral Point of View" - you can read about that in WP:NPOV. The way to understand that is as follows:

The 'high court' of Wikipedia (the WP:ARB) has determined that (whether you like it or not) Homeopathy is "A Fringe Theory" and "Pseudoscience". This committee is the nearest thing Wikipedia has to an actual "law".
The WP:NPOV guidelines say that fringe theories fall under special guidelines at WP:FRINGE.
WP:FRINGE says "When discussing topics that reliable sources say are pseudoscientific or fringe theories, editors should be careful not to present the pseudoscientific fringe views alongside the scientific or academic consensus as though they are opposing but still equal views."

So, you see - our guidelines require "scientific or academic consensus" to be given more weight than pseudoscientific fringe theory.

What can you do about this?

You can go and complain about the policies on the talk pages under WP:FRINGE and/or WP:NPOV - but you should be warned that these are long held guidelines, they've been argued about long and hard - and unless you can come up with a radically new argument that nobody has already thought of - you're not going to get anywhere.
You can accept that Wikipedia (rightly or wrongly) runs on the principle that mainstream science is generally considered to be "true" and pseudoscience is to be considered with extreme skepticism...and your best hope is to get your views expressed better on other web sites with less strict policies in this regard.
One thing you can't do is get change to happen by complaining here on the Homeopathy talk page - we're required to follow policy - and this is NOT the place to change those policies.

100.47.77.18 (talk) 06:15, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

"multiple systematic reviews have indicated that this is because of chance, flawed research methods, and reporting bias?

This sentence is unsupported and misleading . Can you please cite the conclusions of these reviews? --Neb46545 (talk) 17:06, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, that statement should be referenced to the appropriate citations. Lemme take a look.EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 17:26, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Manual of style says no need for citations in the lede if the points recur in the main body of the article (as these are, abundantly). Blythwood (talk) 17:31, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Fair enough.EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 17:41, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, no objection to them myself but I think purists think it looks nicer. Got slapped down for dissenting on that when I were a noob.... Blythwood (talk) 17:44, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

What do the conclusions say about its efficacy and statistical flaws ?--Neb46545 (talk) 17:59, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Our purpose here is not to cut and paste full sections of published research, but rather to summarize important points. The language in our article is appropriate relative to what the literature says and the provided references found throughout the text allow the reader to find the source material and read it if desired.EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 18:07, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I refer the hon. gentleman to Shang et. al. and Linde et. al. 1999. The more carefully a study is designed, the less likely it is to be positive. Guy (Help!) 01:10, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

You know that Linde at al 1999 report that still after the qualifications that there is some evidence homeopathy it is not placebo. The result is positive. They dont say the same thing as Shang and Ernst - that it is all placebo. All these can be easily found - but people here choose to ignore them. User:EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin'if you copy and paste here all the conclusions of the reviews on homeopathy everybody will see that what i m saying it is accurate. And the above sentence in the article is unsupported. --Neb46545 (talk) 15:57, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Could you point out where that conclusion is reached in the Linde paper? Here is the most explicit conclusion statement from the paper, found in the abstract:

"We conclude that in the study set investigated, there was clear evidence that studies with better methodological quality tended to yield less positive results."

After reading through the discussion section, I see no remark that there is still "some evidence that homeopathy is not placebo". The study is not set up to reach such conclusions. It's a study of methodology, not effectiveness, and only looks at what happens to the conclusion on effectiveness when quality is controlled for.

It is also interesting to note, for any who want to suggest that there is still an effect seen in higher quality trials (even though that is not a conclusion of Linde's paper), that one thing Linde did not control for is sample size and statistical power. Even in his "high quality" pool, the bulk of the studies are characterized by small sample sizes and either no mention of power or explicit calculations which show that the study is underpowered, so don't get too excited. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 16:28, 24 December 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 January 2016

This edit request to Homeopathy has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

(CC in the discussion page)

In this solid study published in PloS, homeopathy was found efficient to cure moderate to severe depression in peri and post-menopausal women. The effect was significantly above placebo while fluoxetine did not outperform placebo itself.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118440

we cannot honestly leave this section as it is :

Homeopathy is a pseudoscience – a belief that is incorrectly presented as scientific. Homeopathic preparations are not effective for treating any condition;[2][3][4][5] large-scale studies have found homeopathy to be no more effective than a placebo, suggesting that any positive feelings that follow treatment are only due to the placebo effect and normal recovery from illness.[6][7][8]

I suggest the following edit:

Homeopathy is debates as pseudoscience – a belief that is incorrectly presented as scientific. Homeopathic preparations have been thought to be not effective for treating any condition;[2][3][4][5] and many large-scale studies found homeopathy to be no more effective than a placebo, suggesting that any positive feelings that follow treatment are only due to the placebo effect and normal recovery from illness.[6][7][8] A Study by del Carmen Macias-Cortes et al (PLoS 2015) however found evidence that an homeopathic remedy was efficient to cure postmenopausal depression, beyond placebo, and with better performances than fluoxetine.

it is neutral and factual

95.253.43.21 (talk) 15:28, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Not done A primary source, in PLoS One to boot, is not reliable. See WP:MEDRS - which also explicitly disallows using weak sources to "however" strong ones as you propose. (Also see xkcd.) Alexbrn (talk) 16:32, 1 January 2016 (UTC)

Just another study which failed to achieve statistical power according to the authors' own assessments. That's why cherry picking from primary sources is not allowed. 73.181.114.203 (talk) 19:18, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

"Magic placebo more effective than ordinary placebo: Researchers find placebo combined with more care is better than a drug alone. Meanwhile, back in the real world, there is no reason to think homeopathy should work, no way it can work, and no proof it does work. Guy (Help!) 22:52, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Hindi Homoeopathy page

I just read the Hindi article on homoeopathy using a fairly crude translation and it appears to include no criticism on it and presents it as a valid treatment. The talk page is almost empty so there is obviously no controversy there. Makes you wonder if there are any Indian skeptics out there or if it is all just too hard. Lumberjack Steve (talk) 13:15, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Each language's project is individual, we have no sway there. India's national government is apparently completely credulous about the subject, even maintaining a department of AYUSH. It's very sad, but not really relevant to this wikiproject.

Drop a copy of this article on their talk page :-) Guy (Help!) 16:51, 6 January 2016 (UTC)

Lumberjack steve, I would always be cautious when declaring what is or is not "obvious", especially when drawing a disparaging conclusion about an entire country.

If you check List of Wikipedias, for instance, you'll notice that the Hindi Wikipedia has about 450 active editors. (Where 'active' just has to clear the low bar of "at least one edit in the last 30 days".) The entire Hindi project gets fewer than 500 edits per day. In contrast, the English Wikipedia has 115,000 active editors. We blow through 500 edits in five or ten minutes. (I've seen Arbitration cases that put up more edits in a day than the entire Hindi Wikipedia.) That hundred-plus-fold difference in scale has some pretty significant effects on the Hindi project—as it probably does on all but the largest handful of Wikipedias.

The Hindi article on homeopathy has been around since, what, 2007? In the last nine years, it's only gotten about a hundred edits (a good chunk of which are from bots) from fewer than a dozen unique editors. The talk page isn't empty because there's no controversy, it's empty because there's practically nobody there. If I knew that no one would read what I wrote on a talk page for months or years, then I probably wouldn't use talk pages much either.

Out of a quarter billion Hindi speakers, only a few hundred are regular contributors to Wikipedia, and fewer than a dozen put something in the article on homeopathy. Of course the coverage is incomplete and slanted; a lot of English Wikipedia's articles on alt-med/quack-med topics got started by one or a few dedicated proponents, too.

Because the Hindi Wikipedia is so much smaller, it hasn't developed (and wouldn't have the volunteers to maintain) the sorts of resources and policies that we take nearly for granted on English Wikipedia: WP:RSN, WP:MED, WP:FTN, WP:AC/DS, WP:MEDRS, etc. A reality-driven editor would be in a very lonely place.

And of course it doesn't help that most of the medical literature these days is in English-language journals. Finding and using appropriate sources chock-full of dense, technical, specialized language not in one's mother tongue is non-trivially difficult. (We have our hands full here on English Wikipedia with English speakers who still can't read the literature.) TenOfAllTrades(talk) 01:38, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

A very interesting bit found here on the Indian-born 2009 Nobel laureate in chemistry, expressing his expert perspective on homeopathy and astrology in India. LeadSongDog come howl! 18:34, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

That's a scrape of the Hindustan Times article I linked on 6 Jan above. Guy (Help!) 23:16, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Sections of this article sound like opinions than facts

One line I am quoting is - "The use of quantum entanglement to explain homeopathy's purported effects is "patent nonsense", as entanglement is a delicate state which rarely lasts longer than a fraction of a second". While the fact stated in his sentence is that "entanglement is a delicate state which rarely lasts longer than a fraction of a second" - use of the terms "patent nonsense" and the formation of the sentence makes it appear as if the author is representing their opinion of the matter than stating the fact. The language of this article is very biased and does not live up to the Five pillars of Wikipedia principles mainly: "Wikipedia is written from a neutral point of view" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kulkarninikhil (talk • contribs) 08:21, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

The neutral point of view is the point of view taken by reliable sources. If reliable sources describe it as patent nonsense, well, there you go. Now "patent nonsense" is obviously opinion, which is why we put it in quotes. But that is the prevailing opinion, so it's worth mentioning regardless. Neutral most certainly does not mean sugar coating the views of reliable sources and handling the subject with kid gloves. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:30, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Someguy, in my opinion you are incorrectly interpreting WP's NPOV policy. The "prevailing opinion" can be stated in a neutral voice in a WP article so that it does not come off as being in WP's voice. Cla68 (talk) 15:36, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

The statement is referenced to an external source, making it clear that it is not in "WP's voice". EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 15:48, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Where a "prevailing opinion" is held by the vast majority of experts, it is appropriate for us to state it in Wikipedia's voice. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 23:04, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

While that might make the True Believers a little less insane about this article, it would not really be an improvement since the prevailing opinion is based on reality whereas homeopathy is based on fantasy. Guy (Help!) 00:07, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 January 2016

This edit request to Homeopathy has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Those paras to be removed are (there are other such and please remove them too):

<Assessments by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, the British National Health and Medical Research Council, and the Swiss Federal Health Office have each concluded that homeopathy is ineffective, recommending against the practice receiving any further funding.[26][27]> Sc560 (talk) 13:29, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Not done The content is good and in accord with the WP:PAGs. Alexbrn (talk) 13:31, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Indeed, your argument for "fairness" is nothing but a laundry list of logical fallacies: argumentum ad antiquitatem, argumentum ad populum, appeal to authority (the old "I'm a doctor, so I know" business), false authority (experts of homeopathy carry no more weight on its validity than experts on unicorns carry on establishing the existence of the latter) the old "I used to be a skeptic, but now I know" gambit, and probably a few more. All of the best quality evidence supports the article as is. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 15:44, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I believe "quackery" and "a sham" should be removed, as it does not appear to be neutral and rather insulting. I know that it's pseudoscience, but... RotubirtnoC (talk) 02:51, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

It is a matter of pseudoscience, with no reliable evidence of efficacy, being sold as if it has medical benefit - that is the definition of quackery. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 04:11, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

I think several reliable sources do not concur with this point of view: for instance :

"In contrast to findings by Kleijnen and Linde, a 2005 meta-analysis by Shang et al that was published in Lancet found that the efficacy of homeopathic treatment was no different than placebo.51 However, this study has been highly criticized for being methodologically flawed on many levels.52-61"--Neb46545 (talk) 05:13, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Several problems there, Neb. 1) Our article states that "the scientific and medical communities" classify homeopathy as nonsense, quackery, and a sham. The references cited in your link come almost exclusively from sources such as "Homeopathy" and other alternative medicine rags. Those publications don't reflect the opinion of the scientific and medical communities - they primarily reflect the foregone conclusions of true believers. 2) More importantly, none of the references given in our article regarding the nonsense, sham and quackery statements link to the Shang study. The Shang study is simply one of many references offered which call into question the efficacy of homeopathy. It does not play a major role in our article and, as best as I can tell, is not referenced anywhere in the body of the article, but only in the lede. Finding potential flaws in the Shang study has nothing to do with the broad scientific opinion that homeopathy is nonsense, quackery, or a sham. It's a red herring. 3) I find it humorous that the people claiming to have found flaws in Shang's statistical methods rely on almost universally underpowered studies that look at completely heterogeneous manifestations of disease and treatment options to frame their counterpoint in attempts to establish that there is really any sort of debate here. For example, looking at some of Dullman's favorites which examine the effects of personalized homeopathy in treating childhood diarrhea in Nicaragua and Nepal, we find several possible pathogens and causes of diarrhea being "treated" with a whole list of homeopathic "treatments". They aren't testing anything in these papers; they do little more than present an aggregate of n = 1 interventions and wind up with barely significant results of dubious clinical value. The research in favor of homeopathy is crap - Shang's methods don't change that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk • contribs) 17:08, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Besides your personal investigations and opinions about the meta analyses which support homeopathy's efficacy and they are not cited even if they are published in mainstream reliable sources--- there are important authors of several reviews on homeopathy who are cited in this article and they don;t agree that homeopathy is all placebo - Does an encyclopedia have to report these views ? Of course ---unless they want to pretend that every important author and researcher in mainstream literature li agrees with the line Homeopathy is placebo etc....(Are you really ready to discuss the math in the studies you refer to?) --Neb46545 (talk) 02:59, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Neb46545 after looking through the last article you referenced I fail to see how you can convey such as a hole hearted endorsement of homeopathy. I am always surprised that even true believers in homeopathy can not design a study and come up with a result that is more than just vaguely positive. Do you know of any quality study(s) that show an unequivocally positive result?Unconventional2 (talk) 03:25, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

There are several "studies" that report unequivocally positive results; the problem is that they are poorly designed, underpowered, report misleading details about their experiments (Benveniste), or haven't been replicated by reliable labs. Listing them here (as we have seen several editors more than willing to do) won't accomplish anything since they can't be incorporated into our article. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 05:20, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

I should probably have been a little clearer. Quality = Randomized double blind placebo control studies with enough power/participants to be of statistical significance. And a well-defined pre-stated objective i.e. not a finishing expedition. Unconventional2 (talk) 14:33, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Even this misses the crux of the problem. Let's suppose, hypothetically, that there were such a study—that is, a perfectly designed, well-blinded randomized controlled trial with adequate statistical power, testing a single pre-specific primary endpoint, which found that homeopathy was significantly more effective than placebo with p <0.05. What is the likelihood that this study result is a false-positive, despite its perfect design?

A) 5%
B) Somewhere around 99.999%

(Hint: the answer is B. If you perform randomized controlled trials of therapies that lack any sort of prior probability of effectiveness, then all you're doing at best is identifying statistical noise. Of course, the existing clinical trials of homeopathy are generally not well-designed, so even that is being overly optimistic). MastCell ^Talk 01:10, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Don't forget the relevant XKCD: [18]. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:02, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree. A Bayesian analysis should also be a requirement of any quality study. Thanks for the cartoon! Unconventional2 (talk) 13:52, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

This is not a matter of opinion - your linked article raising questions about Shang's analysis does not offset the mainstream scientific assessment of homeopathy and has no bearing whatsoever on the statement in question. This is just more of the same demand for undue weight. Yes, there are reviews out there that come to the conclusion that homeopathy works, but they are using the same pool of data that the likes of Linde have incorporated into analyses finding that quality matters. The fact that Linde and others have pointed out this flaw with the data supplants any positive results using the same data. the long and short of it is that positive results disappear when quality is controlled for. As for the math in the Jacobs papers, this is not the place for it, but I will point out that the authors themselves admit that they were underpowered in the Nicaragua trial and that the results reported in the Nepal trial (probability of having diarrhea after 5 days) had no standard deviation reported and were different than the stated primary assessment objective of the paper (days until resolution of diarrhea), so it's impossible to carry out any power calculations. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 05:20, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

@MastCell what you are writing makes no sense in mathematical logic ----even if one conducts any number of trials on homeopathy because "any sort of prior probability of effectiveness " is ...lacking then the positive results should be statistical noise ? This is a logical fallacy - who is the judge and the general criteria and definition for "prior probability of effectiveness" ? Science disproves revises itself quite often and this is not a controversial statement. So it would be easier for all the researchers to say - including the anti homeopathy crusaders - whatever we find will be statistical noise - therefore homeopathy does not work -- that would be a great scientific statement. ---- On topic now - you are comparing individualized homeopathy where the censored reliable reviews show an effect and non individualized homeopathy where they do not . A neutral editor reports all results equally since they are reported in first rate journals - no matter if you disagree with the outcome or methods. Unless you write a polemic and you are just using only the sources who agree with your point of view. --Neb46545 (talk) 15:26, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

This is not a forum and not the place to have Bayesian analysis explained to you. The lack of any plausible mechanism means that statistically significant results can just as easily be interpreted as being due to one study group being labeled "A" in a ledger and the other group being labeled "B" (or any other real, imagined, or wholly mundane differences between the groups that appears beforehand or as an artifact of the study). I can give you some bullshit magical explanation of why writing down these letters will affect the outcome of the study in question, or how invisible fairies are responsible for the outcome, and these explanations for any observed statistical difference would be just as sound as the notion that the difference is due to diluting and shaking. It is much more likely due to statistical noise or unrecorded methodological flaws (Benveniste).

Do you have any specific changes that you want to suggest for our article that can be referenced to WP:MEDRS compliant secondary sources? Keep in mind that Linde and others have pointed out that the positive results reported in those reviews already identified and discussed here are due to their inclusion of garbage primary studies. When quality is controlled for, the effect disappears. Quite simply, the information that you want to include in our article does not exist, as any review which finds a positive effect from homeopathy is superseded by those analyses which point out the glaring flaw of including low quality studies. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 17:34, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

@EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin': On the topic of statistical sophistication, I came across this article in the International Journal of High Dilution Research (to which, of course, I subscribe). It illustrates a nearly complete ignorance of basic statistical concepts among recently graduated homeopaths. (Of the 74 surveyed homeopaths, a whopping 8% were able to correctly interpret a p value, while none—0%—were able to correctly interpret an unadjusted odds ratio or a Kaplan-Meier estimator, both of which are very basic biostatistical tools). This finding was published in a non-MEDLINE-indexed journal dedicated to promoting homeopathy, which makes it all the more interesting. It does explain a lot of the circular conversations on these talk pages, I suppose. (If you want to take the statistical-knowledge test yourself, it's here—but no peeking at the answers ahead of time!) MastCell ^Talk 20:07, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

@MastCell: I wanted to test myself, but your link to the test actually took me to the paper, unless I'm missing something, which is entirely possible! -Roxy the dog™ woof 21:22, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

@Roxy the dog: Ooops! I thought that link went directly to the exam, but you're right, it circles back to the JAMA paper. To find the actual exam, go to the article page, then go to the box on the right of the article text and click on "Supplemental Content" (next to the paperclip icon). That will take you to the stats test. Good luck (and remember, even if you guess randomly you should get ~25% of the questions right, which is significantly higher than the homeopath's performance). MastCell ^Talk 02:04, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Further NHMRC material

I wanted to add this to the "Government Level Reviews" part: The chair, Paul Glasziou, of the NHMRC enquiry wrote in the British Medical Journal "I had begun the journey with an “I don’t know” attitude, curious about whether this unlikely treatment could ever work. Still, who would have believed that bacteria caused peptic ulcers, or that vaccines for cancers would become routine. So just maybe.…but I lost interest after looking at the 57 systematic reviews (on 68 conditions) which contained 176 individual studies and finding no discernible convincing effects beyond placebo." BMJ UR: http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2016/02/16/paul-glasziou-still-no-evidence-for-homeopathy/ However, I keep seeing a lock on the article and can't put it there. It says something about confirmation but I seem to be confirmed. Can anybody help? User:9847a Anyway, is it ok to add the above and does somebody know what I can do? —Preceding undated comment added 04:03, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

While I am heartened by the musings of the chair, I would be more inclined to include an official summary statement by the NHMRC as opposed to a personal reflection by the chair which merely points out what our article already references elsewhere, i.e. systematic reviews show that homeopathy doesn't work. But that's just one man's opinion. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 17:03, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

I too was considering adding that content, but instead chose to create a section, which contains content more in keeping with what Puddin' says. -- BullRangifer (talk) 17:09, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Looks nice. I think BR's new section makes for a strong addition. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 17:48, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Summary section of the article does not provide a balanced view of the controversy related to the topic

The summary section makes a sweeping comment - "large-scale studies have found homeopathy to be no more effective than a placebo, suggesting that any positive feelings that follow treatment are only due to the placebo effect and normal recovery from illness"

However, later in the article there is mention of an FDA ruling which says - "The FDA cited the growth of sales of over the counter homeopathic medicines, $2.7 billion as of 2007, many labeled as "natural, safe, and effective." As per the article further here the matter is still subjudice.

In this context, the summary is not fairly representing the issue of controversy around Homeopathy. The line in the summary quoted above should be followed by an additional disclaimer that "On April 20–21, 2015, the FDA held a hearing on homeopathic product regulation and the matter is currently being discussed." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kulkarninikhil (talk • contribs) 08:08, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

You can't be serious. "Many labeled as 'natural, safe, and effective'". You're comparing the findings of meta-analyses of clinical trials with the marketing claims of homeopathy distributors and claiming this presents some kind of controversy? One statement comes from reliable sources, the other is a marketing phrase. That the FDA has dragged its feet on regulating homeopathy is rather irrelevant. Someguy1221 (talk) 09:33, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree with Kulkarnininikhil that the intro as currently written is not a neutral representation of the article text. Cla68 (talk) 15:34, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

The article is neutral in keeping with WP:NPOV. Neutral does not mean "equal time", nor is it meant to reflect popular opinion. The bulk of scientific evidence paints homeopathy as a fringe belief. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 15:45, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Is homeopathy considered to be a fringe belief in India? Cla68 (talk) 16:23, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

How does the above comment help to improve the article? -Roxy the dog™ woof 17:33, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Is creationism considered a fringe belief in Louisiana? Guy (Help!) 17:48, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Because, if homeopathy is not considered to be a fringe practice in India, one of the biggest and most populated countries in the world, then it undermines the blanket statement that homeopathy is considered to be a fringe practice. So, again, is homeopathy considered to be a fringe practice in India? Cla68 (talk) 17:51, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

I've said this to you before, your poor understanding of sourcing, and PAG, belies your experience here. Why bother? -Roxy the dog™ woof 18:06, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

You appear to be evading the question...Is homeopathy considered a "fringe belief" in India? Yes or no? Cla68 (talk) 21:29, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

You appear to be missing the point - the popular acceptance of something has no bearing on the reality of its value. Properly designed and analyzed experiments (science) establishes value/validity. The scientific method is not different in India, nor is the pool of data, so science says it's a fringe belief in India the same as anywhere else. You are offering an argumentum ad populum, a logical fallacy, meaning that your argument does nothing to establish your conclusion. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 21:51, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

See the comment here, and the source it cites which states that as of 2014 "Only 5 to 7 percent usage of ‘other’ including AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga or Naturopathy Unani, Siddha and homoeopathy) was reported both in rural and urban area." But in any case, the criterion for whether the topic is regarded as fringe here is how the medical and scientific consensus regards it. Brunton (talk) 22:01, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Dullman has also recently tried the "everyone in India can't be wrong" argument. Funny thing is, the life expectancy in India is currently 66 years, while that in the U.S. is 79 years. This article points out that there has recently been an increase of life expectancy in India of 5 years and that it is due primarily to the introduction of modern public health interventions. So one has to wonder, is it the reliance on things such as homeopathy that is responsible for the still low overall expectancy in India? It seems pretty clear that supplanting such nonsense with real medicine has a demonstrable and profound beneficial effect. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 22:06, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

I agree the real question is not what the general public of India believes but whatever or not their views should given priority over established science. --174.91.186.82 (talk)

EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' is right: "the popular acceptance of something has no bearing on the reality of its value." At Wikipedia, when dealing with scientifically falsifiable matters, the term "fringe" is unrelated to any degree of statistical minority or majority acceptance or rejection in the general populace. It refers exclusively to acceptance or rejection by the mainstream scientific community. If a clear majority of the scientific community reject an idea, then believers are considered on the "fringe", even if a large majority of the general populace are also believers. Scientists hold the trump card when it comes to verifiable facts. This also applies to climate change, where a clear majority of American Republicans deny the overwhelming scientific consensus supporting anthropogenic climate change/global warming. That majority are ALL "fringe", just as ALL believers in homeopathy are "fringe", even if they are a majority in India (which may be the case there). -- BullRangifer (talk) 16:01, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Bull, that isn't true. If the majority of the world disagrees with a few scientists, and the sources reflect that, then that view carries here in WP. We crowdsource. This isn't "SciencePedia". Cla68 (talk) 18:21, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Right, the argumentum ad populum. Fifty million smokers can't be wrong! That said, I don't know where you got your facts; recent data suggest that the vast majority of Indians rely on conventional medicine rather than homeopathy (see this from Edzard Ernst, for instance). Do you have some sources saying otherwise that you'd like to discuss? MastCell ^Talk 18:54, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

@Cla68: this is unequivocally, completely, and crucially wrong. We specifically do not crowdsource, we represent what the experts have published in reliable sources. Having 51% of the population's support is not a factor in determining what exists in the scientific mainstream. To quote our NPOV policy, "The relative prominence of each viewpoint among Wikipedia editors or the general public is not relevant and should not be considered." VQuakr (talk) 20:26, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

While the popularity and prevalence of a belief may be of general interest, homeopathy makes specific claims of intervention "A" causing outcome "B". Such claims can not be addressed by popular belief, but are most appropriately assessed through the scientific method. The popularity of homeopathy is already touched on in the article here and here. The popularity of homeopathy has no bearing on the rest of the article, which is dedicated to presenting evidence which establishes the reality of the situation - i.e. it is possible for a lot of people to believe in patently absurd nonsense. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 20:37, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't take a side right? Either popular or scientific. It's against our policy. What it does is influence the weight that the article gives it. If 2 billion people in the world believe in Christian creationism but 10,000 scientists believe in Darwinism (and I'm skewing the numbers a little, I know), then our articles should reflect that weight. If you don't like it that the majority of the world haven't accepted everything that scientists necessarily accept, then you need to start your own wiki- "ScienceWiki". This is Wikipedia, and it goes by the wisdom of the crowd. Cla68 (talk) 20:44, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

That is simply not correct. Check VQuakr's post above for applicable WP rules. Our article mentions popular opinion and then commits itself to presenting evidence. BTW, think about what you are suggesting - there is no compelling evidence that homeopathy works (after 200 years), therefore we should report popular opinion. The structure of our article does not need to change; you may, however, want to look at your beliefs if an appeal to popularity is the best you can do, as is being admitted by your proposal here. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 21:09, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

You are completely misunderstanding the NPOV policy. This is not a democracy. Dbrodbeck (talk) 21:10, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Ever heard the expression, "Judge people by their actions, not their words"? That applies here. A few of you here are saying the crowdsourcing and wisdom of the masses doesn't apply to articles like this, but your actions completely bely that. You all watch this article like hawks and quickly revert any changes that don't meet your approval. If two or more people object to the present content, you quickly pile in and object. Obviously, you know that Wikipedia's content is decided by the masses. That's how Wikipedia was originally designed, and how it still operates. If a local consensus develops to change it, it gets changed, because having the numbers means you can out revert-war those who are fewer in number. Same thing with the sourcing. If 500 million people like homeopathy and 5,000 don't (even if they're scientists), the only way this article expresses the view of the 5,000 is if more editors here support those 5,000 than those against. Cla68 (talk) 21:27, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

I already quoted what NPOV actually has to say about popular opinion, which you ignored. You are (repeatedly) assigning a position to WP's policy that it simply does not take. VQuakr (talk) 21:51, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

A collection of editors making sure that the rules are followed is not the same thing as a collection of editors forcing their opinions or the opinions of any arbitrarily selected cross section of the population. That is why WP rules exist, to empower that very distinction and to prevent people from coming in here and employing every imaginable fallacious argument to forward their ideological agenda. Work within WP rules or please leave. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 21:56, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

There have been three government reviews of homeopathy: Switzerland, the UK and Australia. All three concluded that it doesn't work. That's hardly a surprise: read the article and you'll find that homeopathy is based on the idea that like cures like, which is simply not the case. It's also predicated on the idea that by dilution and magic shaking, a substance becomes "potentised". If this were true it would have profound implications for science, but the only people who seem able to produce any evidence that it does, were already believers before they started. See pathological science. That's the reality the article reflects. Homeopathy believers hate that and keep trying to change it, but they need to change the real world first, then Wikipedia will follow. Admittedly the chances are low as the universe seems to really hate homeopathy. Guy (Help!) 00:24, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

just want to note that the thing cited in the OP about "many labeled as 'natural, safe, and effective'" - those labels are why the FDA was cracking down; the FDA judged those labels as false. The OP seems to be among those who take such marketing at face value. Oy. Jytdog (talk) 20:51, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

NPOV concerns

1. Please remove the word "dogmas" from the following statement in the introduction: "Homeopathy is not a plausible system of treatment, as its dogmas 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."

There are no established "dogmas" within the homeopathic community. Using this word immediately indicates the strong bias of the writer. If you would like to include the "dogmas" of Homeopathy, please find a reliable source that lists them. I do not believe such a thing exists.

2. Please remove this sentence from the introduction: "The continued practice of homeopathy, despite a lack of evidence of efficacy,[6][7][21] has led to it being characterized within the scientific and medical communities as nonsense,[22] quackery,[4][23][24] and a sham.[25]"

This sentence reveals a strong preference for the opinions and biases of the scientific and medical communities. The vitriol of scientific and medical communities should not be placed as an authoritative condemnation of homeopathy, especially as an introduction to the term. These claims would be much better served in a separate tab about criticisms and controversies.

This entire introduction ignores the historical and religious underpinnings of homeopathic practices. An unbiased introduction should give equal attention to various disciplinary approaches to a topic, and not preference that of the scientific community.

Mbentsman (talk) 19:02, 2 March 2016 (UTC)mb 3/2/2016

A dogma is a principle, belief or statement of opinion, especially one considered to be absolutely true and indisputable, regardless of evidence or without evidence to support it. That is an accurate descriptor for how homeopaths view, for example, their philosophy of "like cures like." Per our guidelines, we are required to reflect the scientific consensus, which indeed is thoroughly against homeopathy. Following your proposal to give equal validity to the homeopaths would actually violate our NPOV policy, as described at WP:GEVAL. VQuakr (talk) 20:08, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

We have covered point #2 above. As for your first concern, you'll want to read up on the definition of what a "dogma" is. There is no negative connotation, it is simply an appropriate word to describe the central defining beliefs of any concept. Biochemists speak of the "central dogma" of molecular biology all the time - it is not a bad thing to have a dogma. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 00:06, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

After due consideration: No. Guy (Help!) 00:27, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia should show a "strong preference" for the expertise of scientific and medical communities -- that's part of the NPOV policy. Manul ~ talk 04:56, 4 March 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia disregards the most minority of the minority viewpoints (such as flat Earth), as any coverage gives it undue weight. If a concept is nearly unanimously accepted (the minority who affirm that homeopathy is effective is ~0%), it is fact. Esquivalience ^t 19:27, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

NOT FOLLOWING ARBITRATION

As: 1- the Arbitration Committee Decisions on Pseudoscience describes 4 groups, being group 4: Alternative theoretical formulations: Alternative theoretical formulations which have a following within the scientific community are not pseudoscience, but part of the scientific process. 2- a simple search in one of the leading sites of science, Pubmed, shows that whether it acts or not is still a matter of debate (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26678738), with plenty of papers in favor of it (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26788033; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25129881) ; (therefore, it should be categorized in group 4) I believe that wikipedia's classification is biased...

As does every True Believer. The tone of our article is set by the scientific consensus. Three separate governments have reviewed this and each has found that there is no credible evidence that homeopathy is effective for any condition. It is widely identified as pseudoscience, and we cite the sources. Guy (Help!) 07:57, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

No, it is at best of the group 2 variety. There is no "alternative formulation" in the scientific community. True, most sources throw the "more studies are needed" caveat into their conclusions, but that merely reflects the poor quality of research available - it does not serve as any sort of alternative theory suggesting that there is any reason to believe further study will yield any better outcomes. The other variety of paper you mention, those which claim to find a benefit beyond placebo, are universally of the poor quality variety lamented by the aforementioned caveat rendering papers. Publishing a paper which concludes that "our lousy research methods have yielded a p value < 0.05" doesn't serve as an "alternative formulation", but is better characterized as an ongoing inept fishing expedition. There is no evidence supporting any sort of theory that it could work and no good evidence suggesting that it does work. The only reason it homeopathy is classified as type 2 pseudoscience and not type 1 - obvious pseudoscience - is because it actually maintains a popular following. This following simply serves as a semantic delineation between type 1 and type 2 pseudoscience; it does not do anything to establish any value in homeopathy. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 14:18, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

The machinery of Homoeopathy

QUOTE: Homeopathy is not a plausible system of treatment, as its dogmas 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. END OF QUOTE

May be there are explanations for how Homoeopathy works.

See these:

1. The machinery of Homoeopathy

2. Software codes of Reality, Life and Languages! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.217.230.177 (talk) 14:24, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

Please read WP:RS and WP:MEDRS. Dbrodbeck (talk) 14:28, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

A couple of problems: first, homeopathy has never been shown to work, so discussing a mechanism of how it could work is quite pointless. Second, your sources stand as metaphors at best and gibberish at worst, not evidence of anything. Inventing some new "code" for interpreting everything doesn't stand as evidence that the "code" is anything more than meaningless words slammed together. In that regard, this nonsense is very much on par with homeopathy - but no more worthy of acknowledgement. EditorFormerlyKnownAsPuddin' (talk) 02:35, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

It is curious that the above links that I had posted are still there. It was expected that it would be removed point blank.

However, just to post a rejoinder, let me QUOTE: Homeopathy is not a plausible system of treatment, as its dogmas 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 END OF QUOTE.

Maybe it is easily noted that even though biology, psychology, physics & chemistry has been mentioned, a totally new field of material or non-material reality that has come into the notice of human knowledge in the past few decades has not been mentioned. And that is the world of Software. It might be surprising, but a truth to say that most doctors and other medical professionals do not have any idea as to what this world is, or how it works. And as to modern science, it might be quite interesting to know where the world of software is placed by them. In Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, or Biology?

Does modern science have as yet any idea as to how the trillions upon trillions of body cells and neural and glial cells work in unison? Is it possible to explain the working of this astronomically gigantic and complicated mechanism without accepting that there is some kind of a software working in the background.

How can medical professionals decry or deny a contention, when a majority of them do not have any idea of what they are denying?

What about Wikipedia removing the totally unacceptable lines: QUOTE: Homeopathy is a pseudoscience END OF QUOTE?

Of course science doesn't know everything. Science knows it doesn't know everything; otherwise, it'd stop. But just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you.
— Dara Ó Briain

The simple truth is that there is no reason to suppose homeopathy should work, as like does not cure like. There is no way it can work, its doctrines are fundamentally incompatible with all relevant scientific knowledge. There is no proof it does work, all known results are fully compatible with the null hypothesis. Guy (Help!) 22:24, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

Homeopathic preparations are not effective for treating any condition;[2][3][4][5] large-scale studies have found homeopathy to be no more effective than a placebo, suggesting that any positive feelings that follow treatment are only due to the placebo effect and normal recovery from illness.[6][7][8] ......."Please change this sentence ... Now a days homeopathy is fully developed science and many research papers are submitted in Indian government .. So it's not just a placebo science ... 59% people are converted in to this science from conventional therapy . Dr.mananthekadi (talk) 07:38, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

It's not science at all. Sure, there are some people in India submitting credulous nonsense (and a few holdouts in the US and Europe still trying to "prove" their beliefs). That does not change the scientific consensus. Three government-level reviews have been conducted, Switzerland, the UK and Australia, all three concluded there is no evidence it's effective for any condition. Also you should declare any conflict of interest, such as being a practitioner of homeopathy (rather than a doctor, as your username implies). Guy (Help!) 10:06, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Don't be so hard on him Guy, there are a lot of dodgy doctors around the project. -Roxy the doc™ woof 12:03, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

misquotation of souces in the lede

citations 26 and 27 that mention Swiss government are misrepresented, and also very dubious in terms of notability to quote in the lead. 216.80.103.74 (talk) 19:42, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

Can you please be more specific? Delta13C (talk) 19:47, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

I suspect the intent is that ref 27 is not precisely supportive of the statement as it now reads. The source reads

Last January, Interior Minister Didier Burkhalter announced that five therapies [including homeopathy] previously struck off the state insurance list – meaning they would not be reimbursed – will be reinstated as of 2012 as part of a six-year trial period. The sting: all must prove their “efficacy, cost-effectiveness and suitability” by 2017.

LeadSongDog come howl! 20:39, 22 June 2016 (UTC)