Larry Moran and David Colquhoun at Center For Inquiry - Ontario reception
David Colquhoun is by far the most modest and underrated man I have ever met. His talk on Saturday night at the
Although homeopathy isn’t my particular area of interest when it comes to debunking, questioning and researching I am still captivated when other people speak about it. Colquhoun not only showed us all a break down of just how much “200C” really is (basically – nothing) he also showed us an enormous list of Universities offering courses and degrees in homeopathy as a science.
This is particularly frightening. I don’t mind homeopathy being available to people – if you’re prepared to spend a ton of money on a placebo that’s fine, you’re an idiot and that’s not my fault. But when it enters academia it is all kinds of scary. Colquhoun spoke about the complete lack of research and case studies that have been done surrounding homeopathy. The problem, it seems, is that those who support it don’t want to do the research because they know what the outcome will be – that it’s all bunk. But those who know that it’s all bunk and is poisoning our scientific community don’t want to put the millions of dollars into researching it because that money can be used for a much better cause.
The only part of the talk that I was discomforted with was when a member of the audience was “boo”ed for trying to start discussion – for disagreeing. … Grrr. I’d assume that the people who did this were not members of CFI or the UTSA since both groups highly encourage discussion and participation from all angles - not just the speakers, or our own point of views. Luckily Colquhoun encouraged the debate and all was at ease.
For more on the talk check out The Sandwalk and The Unexamined Life. Also take a glance at the National Post article, it’s really good.
“People now seem to think universities will be better if they’re organized like Wal-Mart. The result is a removal of power over the management of science from the people who are involved in science. I think as soon as science is managed by non-scientists it becomes corrupt. They impose a kind of ubercompetitive regime on people, which actually encourages dishonesty.
“Scientists are not perfect, but they know something about science and consequently the best way to get good results is to leave it to scientists, not MBAs.”
Is Homoeopathy, a science or an art?
…or indeed neither… or both?
David Colquhoun Professor of Pharmacology University College London has a bee in his bonnet over this one…
I suppose it’s important to first define science and art
Science: systemic study and knowledge of natural or physical phenomena; any branch of study concerned with observed material facts. Collins Gem English Dictionary 1983 edition.
Art: skill; human skill as opposed to nature, creative skill in painting, poetry, music etc.; any of the works produced thus; profession, craft, knack, contrivance, cunning, trick; system of rules – pl. certain branches of learning, languages, history etc., as distinct from natural science. Collins Gem English Dictionary 1983 edition.
My academic route to becoming a homoeopath was as follows –
Physics, Chemistry and Biology A-Level (all grade C)
Physiology and Pharmacology BSc, (Joint Honours), 2:1 from King’s College, University of London.
It’s interesting that when we learned physiology, we studied cells, tissues, organs, systems and then the whole organism and how the systems interact with each other, yet when we learned pharmacology we learned about crude medicines and how those affect lots of systems of the body, producing many side-effects - to the final years where we studied smaller and smaller aspects of receptors – how to block them, get them to stay open for longer. As pharmacologists go, I wasn’t bad… I had research that I’d carried out, published in the British Journal of Pharmacology (Hay AJ Hamburger M Hostettmann K Hoult JR
Toxic inhibition of smooth muscle contractility by plant-derived sesquiterpenes
caused by their chemically reactive alpha- methylenebutyrolactone functions.
In: Br J Pharmacol (1994 May) 112(1):9-12
ISSN: 0007-1188)
…but I moved on…
I then studied homoeopathy at The College of Homoeopathy’s 3 year full-time vocational qualification leading to a Licentiate of The College of Homoeopathy (LCH) and subsequent registration with The Society of Homeopaths (RSHom).
Pharmacology – is that a science or an art? Well, it’s a science I hear you cry.
My Rang and Dale’s pharmacology text book initially fuelled my curious mind by describing homoeopathy as ‘absurd’.
Dr. Samuel Hahnemann, the founder of homoeopathy introduced his equivalent of clinical trials to pharmacology and then homoeopathy at a time when drilling into people’s skull’s, blood letting and the wide use of mercury or quicksilver were commonplace. I’m lead to believe that the term quackery actually comes from the widespread use of quicksilver in medicine when it was found to be pretty bad at healing people but some still practiced using it.
Unwittingly, two comments from a renowned pharmacologist, Dr Clive Page, now Professor Clive Page, an expert in allergies and asthma, fuelled yet more research into my homoeopathic thinking by asking - “Why do you never find a person with asthma and eczema that’s getting worse at the same time?”
I don’t know whether he had the answer to this question or not, but pretty much all practicing homoeopaths I know would be able to answer this.
The next cracker he came out with was – “Why do we have fever…It’s our body’s defence… It’s our fight back. It’s our immune system fighting back.” I’d like to add, someone who’s dead with an infection won’t have a fever.
He then posed what happens when we take an aspirin to reduce that fever… “you prolong the infection, you’re reducing your body’s fight back. Your body produced that fever as a defence to the infection.” – pure genius.
I feel he’d have made a great homoeopath!
Homoeopathy works with that fight back to health, our fight back is unique to each person, hence the homoeopathic medicine needs to be unique too…
Is that science or art?
Have you considered when someone is vaccinated, especially in children, it’s commonplace to give Calpol soon after that vaccination to reduce the mild fever that is produced. How does that affect the reaction your child has to the vaccine?
– is the application of Calpol after a vaccination science or art?
How a homoeopathic medicine is made from a substance and tested before use is science as defined above.
How that medicine is manufactured is science.
How we elicit symptoms from a client is essentially an art, although it is a skill learnt from observing expert homoeopaths, so it is learnt in a scientific way but perhaps not practiced thus.
Now, here’s something I’d like you to consider…
I have homoeopathic medicines made from sulphur, a snake venom, a daisy, the spit of a rabid dog and one made from gold.
Which one do you think is the most expensive?
Which one would I be likely to prescribe if I had a budget on my medicines that I prescribe?
What would happen if I was encouraged by the people who made sulphur to prescribe more of it?
Is that science or art?
Have a look at the definitions if you need to remind yourself :o)
You may be surprised to learn that in homoeopathy, the sulphur, the snake venom, the daisy, the rabid dog spit and the one made from gold all cost the same.
You may also be surprised to hear they are made by a pharmacist following a scientific procedure… and to be honest, if you wanted to buy a homoeopathic medicine, would you buy it from a chemist shop or an art shop?
My consultations include the price of homoeopathic medicines so it doesn’t influence what is given.
I am never encouraged to prescribe another homoeopathic medicine over another, apart from the principle that it’s the most appropriate one for healing the client as decided by myself and often the client too.
I read about new homoeopathic medicines in homoeopathic journals. This does influence me but this isn’t advertised to me, and the person who submits the articles aren’t paid, neither at the point it is submitted nor do they receive commission when I purchase the homoeopathic medicine for my clients.
Is that science or art?
In my heart of hearts, it doesn’t matter to me whether homoeopathy is classified as an art or science. I studied homoeopathy on a course that was dedicated to homoeopathy, neither BSc nor BA, it was a vocational qualification.
I practice homoeopathy to help people get well again. I do this through my consultations and homoeopathic medicines.
So, if you were going offer homoeopathy at a university, which faculty would you put it in?
Well I can’t resist this one.
“I have homoeopathic medicines made from sulphur, a snake venom, a daisy, the spit of a rabid dog and one made from gold. Which one do you think is the most expensive?”
I would hope that they’d all be the same price because (if they are anything more dilute than 12x) they are all identical. None of them contains any trace of what it says on the label. You’d think that homeopaths would be prosecuted under fair trading laws for mislabeling their products. It is exactly as though you sold strawberry jam that contained no trace of strawberries, but curious loopholes in the law allows homeopaths to get away with it, though jam fraudsters would find themselves in deep trouble.
Odd uh?
And in case you don’t believe that all homeopathic pills are the same, we have the word of a homeopath for it http://dcscience.net/?p=196
Al: I wouldn’t put it in University at all unless it was actually being studied. You can sit here and argue that it’s an art - sure, because art is subjective and thus you can technically classify anything as art. (My best friend is an artist and we fight constantly! Because he thinks art is more important than science, and I think opposite.)
It doesnt matter if homeopathy is a science or an art - it’s dangerous to people minds no matter what, and thus unless it’s being tested properly shouldn’t be in universities what-so-ever.
Honestly it really doesn’t surprise me that someone who studied homeopathy can’t distinguish it from being an art or a science. Art isn’t meant to be ingested and cure a person.
David: thank you for taking that q. That’s a good way to look at them: that they are all the same thing with nothing in them. … I hadn’t registered them as that yet.
There’s a certain irony in the fact that, of the four Google AdSense ads in the right-hand column of this page, three are advertising homeopathic products (one touts “All Natural, 100% Safe Alternatives To Prescription Drugs” and another claims to offer relief from arthritis in five days) whilst the other is for an outfit calling itself the Oxford College of Classical Homeopathy.
David Harper
Cambridge, England
(An alumnus of University College London)
if i could control the ads i would. really, i would.
I was also pretty embarrassed at the booing. Oh well…I guess these issues attract very vocal and opinionated people.
Great to see you, by the way
“if i could control the ads i would. really, i would.”
I know you have no control over Google AdWords. Many other web sites have similar problems with inappropriate ads being inserted by Google. Most of the time, Google’s bizarre choice of ads is quite amusing.
The good news is that one of the ads that is displayed at the moment takes me to the science careers page at the web site of the journal “Science”, so that’s 25% less quackery at a stroke.
And I’m guessing that very few of your readers will click on the links to the quacks’ web sites anyway.