Cycling UK Forum

wrt Chemotherapy,
No, I dont have to consider that for those people who are not cured by the treatment and that is over half of them. Those who are cured may have benefited from the treatment.

Those who are not cured have suffered (I am led to believe that there is a lot of suffering involved) for nothing.
I also believe that is over half of the people who opt to take chemo, so statistically opting to take chemo is going to be the wrong choice for most people, we just dont know if we are the one it will work for or not, and what is at risk (your life) makes it worth taking a less than evens bet.

As it is a less than evens bet most people would have, in the final result, been better off opting for homeopathy (prayer or anything else harmless) instead.

At least a homeopath gives you something to make you get better....

Then maybe you could furnish us with some proof ?

I dont think that you need proof that a homeopath gives you something that is intended to make you get better, the point was not that it would make you get better just that they give you something! I had drifted back on to the subject of the thread and just making the parallel with helmets again.

Helmets and homeopathy are "doing something" when "something" must be done. It has to be done even without proof that it works, the point which Horizon was (I think) making.

meic wrote:wrt Chemotherapy,
No, I dont have to consider that for those people who are not cured by the treatment and that is over half of them. Those who are cured may have benefited from the treatment.

Those who are not cured have suffered (I am led to believe that there is a lot of suffering involved) for nothing.
I also believe that is over half of the people who opt to take chemo, so statistically opting to take chemo is going to be the wrong choice for most people, we just dont know if we are the one it will work for or not, and what is at risk (your life) makes it worth taking a less than evens bet.

As it is a less than evens bet most people would have, in the final result, been better off opting for homeopathy (prayer or anything else harmless) instead.

At least a homeopath gives you something to make you get better....

Then maybe you could furnish us with some proof ?

I dont think that you need proof that a homeopath gives you something that is intended to make you get better, the point was not that it would make you get better just that they give you something! I had drifted back on to the subject of the thread and just making the parallel with helmets again.

Helmets and homeopathy are "doing something" when "something" must be done. It has to be done even without proof that it works, the point which Horizon was (I think) making.

And 'medical science' denies its usefulness because it is (possibly) no better than a placebo, whilst at the same time acknowledging that placebos can have positive effects

Which differs from helmets because the 'placebo' effect they are suggested to have may make things worse (i.e. the equivalent with helmets to placebo effect is 'risk compensation').

meic wrote:

At least a homeopath gives you something to make you get better....

Then maybe you could furnish us with some proof ?

I dont think that you need proof that a homeopath gives you something that is intended to make you get better, the point was not that it would make you get better just that they give you something!

The proof I was after was the proof that what a homeopath gives will make you better. Or maybe I musunderstood and didn't spot the missing "intended to" in your comment "a homeopath gives you something to make you get better"

I would have hoped that these days, treatments being offered as curing medical conditions would be subject to scrutiny and testing so would be of known effectiveness. And I get somewhat annoyed when limited NHS funds are spent on homeopathy. When money is short we should be spending it on treatments that have been subject to scrutiny and have a demonstrable effect (whatever our next king might think and lobby for). New drug treatments are subject to a lot of examination before the NHS can (normally) use them. Yet homeopathy seems to be rather exempt from such scrutiny.

Ian

Psamathe wrote: And I get somewhat annoyed when limited NHS funds are spent on homeopathy. When money is short we should be spending it on treatments that have been subject to scrutiny and have a demonstrable effect (whatever our next king might think and lobby for).

Fair enough, but shouldn't you be directing most of your annoyance at the far bigger sums that the NHS mis-spends on conventional medicines?

Or maybe I musunderstood and didn't spot the missing "intended to" in your comment "a homeopath gives you something to make you get better"

You didnt spot the "intended to" in the first post because it wasnt there. The post wasnt meant to, in any way, imply the effectiveness of homeopathic treatment. I was just making the point that they do something rather like when my daughter has a scratch I give her a kiss or a plaster to make it better, rather than turn her away with "its nothing".

Similarly I said wearing a helmet was doing something which while it may be of no benefit when getting crushed by a lorry, it made you feel better and safer in the meantime.

I read a quote in New Scientist, " Science is true, you don't have to believe in it" . .
Homeopathy needs belief...

landsurfer wrote:I read a quote in New Scientist, " Science is true, you don't have to believe in it" .

But a lot of what passes for science is nothing of the sort.

landsurfer wrote:I read a quote in New Scientist, " Science is true, you don't have to believe in it" . .
Homeopathy needs belief...

Science is the search for truth and it's followers come up with many different answers.
The problem is when people think they have found the ultimate truth, which I doubt any of us have, be they scientist, homoeopath or Pope.

Though they all act as if they have. Especially the person who wrote that in the New Scientist.*

* Hopefully it may have been genuinely tongue in cheek.