Definitions seldom survive meeting the real world.

OK, fine then. However, a surprising number of scientist will be surprised to know they are not working with science. Astronomers, meteorologists, biologists ....

I disagree. Our knowledge in medicine is certainly not absolute, but the say it is not repeatable and verifiable (not to mention falsifiable) is wrong.

Our predictive power in medicine is not 100%, but less will do in the real world.

I cannot say for sure that no such medication exists, but certainly most recognized medicines are pretty predictable.

However, if you insist on your all or nothing approach, perhaps you need to ponder where that leaves homeopathy.

Well, the term 'allopathy' really refers to the mainstream medicine practiced in Hahnemann's era, and it was indeed trial and error. So was, in fact ALL medicine systems of the era, certainly including homeopathy.

However, that kind of allopathy does not exist any more. A few medications persist from that time, proven effective by time, but in general modern medicines are backed by objective, repeatable evidence.


As an advocate of homeopathy (which I assume you are) you can hardly afford to claim otherwise, since homeopathy is still practiced as trial and arror.

For modern medicine it is paramount because it is required of it. It must, in this era, live up to quite rigorous scinetific standards (whether this is science in the Popper way, I will not continue to discuss, since I don't much care) . Why homeopaths are so eager to be scientific, is a bit of a riddle to me, too. I can only suppose they are unawate that the application of scientific methods will be the death of homeopathy.

Hans Christian Andersen, not Grimm.

I'm sorry, but you are mistaken. You seem to be under the illusion that we are still in the 19th century. We are not.

See my replies to Nancy.

Hans

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Thank you, Nancy. And here we clearly see why modern medicine and homepathy are incompatible: Modern medicine does not recognize a 'vital force' as an entitiy which can, in itself, govern health and disease. Likewise, modern medicine does not work by trying to influence the same vital force.


Again a totally different paradigm. Modern medicine sees health as the correct function of the complex of more or less connected processes that makes the body function.

Modern medicine: Disease is the failure of one or several systems in the body to function normally. The cause can be internal or external.

Apart from the 'easily comprehensible' part*), there is not discord here, however, the actual methods are very different:

Homeopathy claims that disease can be comprehensively characterized by externally observable symptoms and that addressing these symptoms can revert the disease.

Modern medicine posits that disease must be characterized by the actual biophysical malfunction, basically regardless of symptom manifestation (although observation of symptoms is still one of the diagnostic tools), and that cure requires that the cause for the malfunction is found and addressed.

Obviously, the two systems assume two different modes of the basic functioning of the body.

Hans

*) While no system wants to make things more complex than necessary, modern medicine has been forced to realize that some disease mechanisms and their possible cures are in fact far from easily comprehensible.

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By changing the name from allopathy to conventional to modern medicine does not change the fact that it is not scientific

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The name has nothing to say, but how do you conclude it is not scientific?

And how do you conclude homeopathy is?

Hans

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Evidence of homeopathy is undeniably positive and consistent. It's a human evidence of experience, gathered from a real-world observation in a real-world setting (not in an ideal artificial laboratory) giving real-world solutions.

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If that is your definition of scientific truth (I have to disagree, but that is another matter), how do you conclude, by the same definition that 'allopathy' is not scientific?

Hans

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Millions of deaths due to side effects of allopathy signifies it is not scientific

Incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions in Hospitalized Patients, April 15, 1998, Lazarou et al. 279 (15): 1200 ? JAMA //adverse drug reactions
BBC NEWS | Wales | South East Wales | Boy, 14, died after acne tablets //clearsil for acne
http://www.deathbymodernmedicine.com/ //a book by Dr. Carolyn Dean MD ND

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Millions of deaths would be unacceptable (fortunately, it's a lie), but it wouldn't make it unscientific. The atom bomb is hightly scientific.

Hans

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Yes the deaths due to side effects of ConMed (Conventional Medicine) rans into millions

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19125683.900?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19125683.900
http://www.hugesettlements.com/articles/Medical_Malpractice.htm
http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080317/full/news.2008.676.html

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From that article:

So this is an article about fake and toxic medicine. Not about side effects.

This is slightly better, but:

And:

So, considering that billions of people use conventional meds, (thank you for using the proper expression, btw), the deaths where side effect 'probably play a role' may well be counted in millions. There is only one kind of medicine that is completely harmless: The one with no effect at all.

Hans

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