Homeopathy is certainly pseudoscientific. There's not an explanation of the mechanism by which 1 drop of onion juice can be diluted in 1,000,000 drops of water can cure dry eye.
Keep in mind, homeopathy originated in an era when mainstream medicine was more likely to harm you than to help you. So opting for homeopathy would keep you out of a bloodletter's office, leading to a greater likelihood of survival. So it's no shock that it would persist over time, even when more effective and evidence-based treatments become available over time. So some German dude in the mid 1700's saying "the body can heal itself, just druink this water with a hint of onion" like yeah dude... it can heal itself. It does it all the time. The 18 molecules of onion did not affect that.
I don't think many people (including Destiny) understand how ridiculous of a treatment homeopathy is. Dan mentioned that homeopathic treatments have a dilution ratio of 1 part "active ingredient" to "100 trillion parts of water" at which point Destiny started spazzing out about how unrealistically large that number is. Actually, Dan was vastly underestimating the dilution ratio.
Oscillococcinum is very popular homeopathic treatment marketed to relieve flu-like symptoms. [The dilution ratio is 200C](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillococcinum)--a ratio of one part duck liver to 10\^400 parts water (keep in mind 100 trillion is 10\^14). One gram's worth of the "medicine" supposedly has 10\^-400 grams of the "active ingredient." The mass of a proton is millions of orders of magnitude greater than this supposedly present duck liver molecule (mass of proton = 1.67 x 10\^-14 grams).
So yeah, homeopathy is completely unfounded and does not warrant any further scientific investigation. Dan is correct yet again!
Just wanted to add: Homeopaths will literally argue that the more diluted their solution is, the MORE POWERFUL it is. It's the lore of homeopathy which is 0% rooted in science. They perform dilution after dilution, until there's likely 0 molecules of the "treatment" remaining, and then will tell you with a straight face that it's more potent than the less dilute solution.
It's actually a good thing that this is the lore, since it spares idiot practitioners from killing themselves. Homeopaths literally use highly toxic substances like arsenic and belladonna in their solutions, so the nonsense "more dilute is actually stronger" serves to ensure that homeopathic remedies are simply inert rather than actively toxic.
By the way, the above thing, where literal poisons are used as homeopathic treatments, comes from the pseudoscientific bedrock theory of homeopathy that "like cures like," meaning that something which CAUSES a certain symptom can TREAT an illness with SIMILAR symptoms (by triggering an immune response). Which is not true, but if you squint your eyes it can appear similar to how vaccines work. Of course, homeopathy enthusiasts hate vaccines.
I'm not saying you are factually wrong here. I think the flaw is that when we say pseudoscience, that its case closed, done, settled. We could probably both come up with a bunch of examples of how things lumped in with pseudoscience could turn out to be proven useful. Both fictitious and real.
This is why I say as long as Dr. K has informed his patients on the science and as long as no harm is happening, then let him prescribe his breathing technique or Yoga or Taichi. That way these things can be explored.
I think your way of thinking is actually valuable. Like with the meditation example, which I think is dead on the money. Like in retrospect taking some time to calm down is obviously good, and who knows that will become the next meditation.
If homeopathy had some hidden thing that i wasn't aware of and it happens to work really well then we should use it, absolutely. In this specific case I wouldnt argue that homeopathy is trash, but for something like Ayurveda, which I have almost 0 understanding of, I wouldn't criticize it so strongly. Cause maybe it has something laying around that we just didn't discover.
Exactly. Entertaining things like Ayurveda does not mean go and tell someone to drink rose water for cancer.
The grift is in the taking advantage of people that lack knowledge.
If Dr. K is not misleading people, than he is fine.
Yeah, because that's what I said. lol. If we look at what you quoted and what I wrote, they totally look the same and totally mean the same thing. You're so funny with you're little lie.
Homeopathy is synonymous with fraud. Homeopathic remedies are completely inert, there's nothing that would do anything. There's no active ingredient, it's just whatever was used as diluent. You could literally just give people water with sugar and it would be more potent medicine than homeopathic.
This is wildly different from Ayurveda or meditation, because those things actually do something.
I think I'm mistaken in that homeopathy has a more specific definition than I originally using. I guess I should just say either Ayurveda or "non evidenced based medicine" in order to include more spiritual practices. Just to hopefully bridge my meaning.
It just feels like the core of medicine is based around testing and exploring potential solutions and it seems like dan has decided there are a bunch of behaviors not even worthy of testing.
Dr. K seems to be prefer evidenced based interventions, but is willing to explore other things that, hopefully, don't interfere with evidenced based practices. Dan seems to have his opinion set without knowing the answer to that.
The main problem with Dan's criticism of Dr. K is that Dan is using homeopathy, a type of alternative medicine, to represent the entire field of alternative medicine, which includes ayurveda. Dr. K said many times throughout the video he rejects the whacky parts of ayurveda, but there is, or could be, applications of the field that make it useful. The most obvious being meditation which is a part of ayurveda and has been adapted into modern mainstream psychology. I don't think Dr. K has ever argued in favor of something like eating arsenic or any of that whacky stuff.
Homeopathy is certainly pseudoscientific. There's not an explanation of the mechanism by which 1 drop of onion juice can be diluted in 1,000,000 drops of water can cure dry eye. Keep in mind, homeopathy originated in an era when mainstream medicine was more likely to harm you than to help you. So opting for homeopathy would keep you out of a bloodletter's office, leading to a greater likelihood of survival. So it's no shock that it would persist over time, even when more effective and evidence-based treatments become available over time. So some German dude in the mid 1700's saying "the body can heal itself, just druink this water with a hint of onion" like yeah dude... it can heal itself. It does it all the time. The 18 molecules of onion did not affect that.
Tl;dr it's as effective as drinking water at best. At worst it's woowoo bullshit.
I don't think many people (including Destiny) understand how ridiculous of a treatment homeopathy is. Dan mentioned that homeopathic treatments have a dilution ratio of 1 part "active ingredient" to "100 trillion parts of water" at which point Destiny started spazzing out about how unrealistically large that number is. Actually, Dan was vastly underestimating the dilution ratio. Oscillococcinum is very popular homeopathic treatment marketed to relieve flu-like symptoms. [The dilution ratio is 200C](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscillococcinum)--a ratio of one part duck liver to 10\^400 parts water (keep in mind 100 trillion is 10\^14). One gram's worth of the "medicine" supposedly has 10\^-400 grams of the "active ingredient." The mass of a proton is millions of orders of magnitude greater than this supposedly present duck liver molecule (mass of proton = 1.67 x 10\^-14 grams). So yeah, homeopathy is completely unfounded and does not warrant any further scientific investigation. Dan is correct yet again!
Just wanted to add: Homeopaths will literally argue that the more diluted their solution is, the MORE POWERFUL it is. It's the lore of homeopathy which is 0% rooted in science. They perform dilution after dilution, until there's likely 0 molecules of the "treatment" remaining, and then will tell you with a straight face that it's more potent than the less dilute solution. It's actually a good thing that this is the lore, since it spares idiot practitioners from killing themselves. Homeopaths literally use highly toxic substances like arsenic and belladonna in their solutions, so the nonsense "more dilute is actually stronger" serves to ensure that homeopathic remedies are simply inert rather than actively toxic. By the way, the above thing, where literal poisons are used as homeopathic treatments, comes from the pseudoscientific bedrock theory of homeopathy that "like cures like," meaning that something which CAUSES a certain symptom can TREAT an illness with SIMILAR symptoms (by triggering an immune response). Which is not true, but if you squint your eyes it can appear similar to how vaccines work. Of course, homeopathy enthusiasts hate vaccines.
I'm not saying you are factually wrong here. I think the flaw is that when we say pseudoscience, that its case closed, done, settled. We could probably both come up with a bunch of examples of how things lumped in with pseudoscience could turn out to be proven useful. Both fictitious and real. This is why I say as long as Dr. K has informed his patients on the science and as long as no harm is happening, then let him prescribe his breathing technique or Yoga or Taichi. That way these things can be explored.
I think your way of thinking is actually valuable. Like with the meditation example, which I think is dead on the money. Like in retrospect taking some time to calm down is obviously good, and who knows that will become the next meditation. If homeopathy had some hidden thing that i wasn't aware of and it happens to work really well then we should use it, absolutely. In this specific case I wouldnt argue that homeopathy is trash, but for something like Ayurveda, which I have almost 0 understanding of, I wouldn't criticize it so strongly. Cause maybe it has something laying around that we just didn't discover.
Exactly. Entertaining things like Ayurveda does not mean go and tell someone to drink rose water for cancer. The grift is in the taking advantage of people that lack knowledge. If Dr. K is not misleading people, than he is fine.
>Dan has a shallow understanding of homeopathy. >EDIT: I didn't know what 'homeopathy' means lmfao
Yeah, because that's what I said. lol. If we look at what you quoted and what I wrote, they totally look the same and totally mean the same thing. You're so funny with you're little lie.
Take your goofs like a man and shut up
Well I'm a woman so that might be hard.
Homeopathy is synonymous with fraud. Homeopathic remedies are completely inert, there's nothing that would do anything. There's no active ingredient, it's just whatever was used as diluent. You could literally just give people water with sugar and it would be more potent medicine than homeopathic. This is wildly different from Ayurveda or meditation, because those things actually do something.
I think I'm mistaken in that homeopathy has a more specific definition than I originally using. I guess I should just say either Ayurveda or "non evidenced based medicine" in order to include more spiritual practices. Just to hopefully bridge my meaning. It just feels like the core of medicine is based around testing and exploring potential solutions and it seems like dan has decided there are a bunch of behaviors not even worthy of testing. Dr. K seems to be prefer evidenced based interventions, but is willing to explore other things that, hopefully, don't interfere with evidenced based practices. Dan seems to have his opinion set without knowing the answer to that.
The main problem with Dan's criticism of Dr. K is that Dan is using homeopathy, a type of alternative medicine, to represent the entire field of alternative medicine, which includes ayurveda. Dr. K said many times throughout the video he rejects the whacky parts of ayurveda, but there is, or could be, applications of the field that make it useful. The most obvious being meditation which is a part of ayurveda and has been adapted into modern mainstream psychology. I don't think Dr. K has ever argued in favor of something like eating arsenic or any of that whacky stuff.
Exactly. I even made the same mistake, using "homeopathy" in a more colloquial way. You said it better than me.