TV Prog

[Soroush Ebrahimi]

Hi
If it is the BBC2 Horizon programme, it has some major flaws. (Funnily
enough BBC2's QED programme in 1991/2 showed Homoeopathy worked on animals
and was not placebo).

They have basically shown that potentised water has the power to change
things. They offered NO explanation for UNEXPECTED RESULT - although this
should in itself be a major discovery. They did not mention this odd result.
I think if I had found this result in an experiment, it would have made me
to do the whole thing under much greater supervision. The Universities
which had done this experiment had not found any such peculiarity.

They had the samples labelled and then relabelled to make sure no one knew
which tube contained what. (enough room for hanky-panky??)

About half of each of two sets of samples showed this effect. So they said
it was a random effect. I do not believe in such random results. Uni profs
do not stick their necks out over random results.

Me thinks some one did a good job in NOT labelling properly.

Great ?? Randi stood to lose a US$1M - so anything is possible.

Also in terms of dilution rates, my reckoning is that 30 C is equivalent to
one drop in more water than the size of Earth itself.

You can ask any one who still thinks Hom = placebo to come and take part in
my re-proving experiment.

Enjoy your viewing but do not fume too much.

Rgds
Soroush
Message: 20
Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2003 08:27:30 -0000
From: "Steve Scrutton"
Subject: RE: [H] TV program

This sounds like the programme shown in the UK in the Horizon series. On the
surface it came over quite balanced - I agree with Rochelle's comment on
this. But I think that it could have been damaging. We homeopaths would only
see those people who saw the 'positive' side without knowing how many people
were 'put off'. It did explain homeopathy quite well (it went on about the
dilution principle with swimming pools and oceans). It looked briefly at
'personalities' who use homeopathy. It looked at a case that was 'cured' by
homeopathy. But it all focused on the setting up of a scientific experinment
that was to 'prove' whether potentized substances actually worked - and in
the end - the very last minute - the results did not prove that it did.

In summary, I think that you should try to organise some form of response,
before and after the programme. For the scientists you might want to
criticise the science - which is apparently flored. For the non-scientists
perhaps the best form of defence is attack! Why, if conventional medicine is
'scientific' are so many of their drugs dangerous or ineffective? At least
homeopathy is safe! The experience of homeopathy is that it is effective
(with the right remedy) - so who cares about the science! Science cannot
prove a lot of things because science is defective; if science cannot prove
how homeopathy works tht is a problem for science, not for homeopathy. And
so on.

Steve Scrutton