Let’s look at the attitudes one may encounter towards the modality of homeopathy or any other treatments promoted as alternative or complementary. Mentioning the H-bomb word 'homeopathy' has been an emotional trigger and was the beginning of the end for 2 of my blocked Facebook-tionships. (Can anyone think of a better portmanteau for Facebook relationships? I'll give you credit)
Some possible labels to apply to people about homeopathy: (labels are useful constructs for groups in my opinion but obviously shouldn't be used to put everyone in a neat little box. We are all much more complicated than that.)
1. Denier: Homeopathy is complete and utter BS. There is nothing to see here. Move along. Move along. It should immediately go the way of trepanation, the White Australia Policy and Gary Coleman. Anyone who believes is either ignorant or stupid or deluded or all of the above like a Gungan from the planet Naboo. The worst homeopathic extremists are about as likable as Bill Cosby doing an impression of Jar Jar Binks.
2. Scientific skeptic: Plausibility strongly suggests that homeopathy is unlikely to have an effect above placebo. More studies than you can poke a hirsute Naturopath at agree that it has no beneficial effect. It may still have a very tiny effect above placebo, but a tiny effect is very different to the claims made by your typical Dr Quinn water-medicine woman. It is basically unethical to give out placebo medicine no matter what kind of ‘healer’ you are. It is pretty much inconceivable that further study is going to yield positive results so no further money should be wasted. Homeopaths, like WWE wrestlers, should just admit that they engage in entertainment and recommend that anyone actually sick should go to a doctor; then keep doing it if people will still pay for it. We still read horoscopes with similar disclaimers at the bottom, so perhaps their business model would not be pile driven into the mat like Stone Cold Steve Austin. (we all agree that astrology is just a bit of fun, right?)
3. Fluffy moderate: Homeopathy is probably BS but just leave them alone unless they are threatening you with a gun loaded with homeopathic bullets. You’ll likely get nowhere challenging believers so don’t bother. Devote your energy to being positive in the hope that the homeopaths that eschew medicine will slowly come round to accepting the benefits of science-based medicine when they really need it. It’s also often a fluffer moderate’s responsibility to pull deniers and believers apart as they usually get along about as well as James Packer and David Gyngell. (I thought that the elites were supposed to all collude. I know, it must have been play fighting between Packer and Gyngell to convince us that they are actually in competition. Their puppet masters even told them to look really comical. Well played.)
4. Extremist moderate: The Universe consciousness collective is full of wonder and mystery and the mystic energy radiates from the Heavens down into our chakras. If homeopathy works for some people why take away their healing from them just because you don’t believe in it? Water is the most mysterious molecule of them all, so why claim that it couldn't have memory? Science is arrogant and claims to know everything about everything but it knows next to nothing. Reality is subjective and what works for others may not work for you. Being negative all the time makes baby Gaia cry and chuck tantrums; then we end up with more earthquakes and hurricanes. One should reflect back positive vibrational energy at all times and they will be rewarded due to the karmic principle that binds all our souls as a single life-force.
5. ‘Benign’ believer: Homeopathy helps me with my ‘symptoms of life’. Big pharma shouldn't get all my money. There is something to placebo medicine that the establishment haven't worked out. But when I actually get ‘proper’ sick, I’ll go and see a doctor. Others are entitled to their own views and they don’t annoy me unless they are being nasty to me. Live and let die, I mean live.
6. Dangerous true believer: Conventional medicine is BS. Big Pharma and Big Farm and Big Food and all the 1% elites are making us chronically ill with toxic food then dispensing treatments just to maximise their profits. Homeopathy proudly sits outside this hegemony and there is a mountain of evidence that it works. Homeopathy can even immunize against measles. People that diss homeopathy are blind and asleep and sheep. They are being critical to try and put the competition out of business. I have heard about homeopathy scientists being gagged by the elites from releasing their positive results. The extremist Western medicine believers haven’t seen what we've seen: real people getting real help from homeopathy. If more people embraced homeopathy, the world would be healthier and happier.
No prizes for guessing which camp I have pitched my deluxe 4-bedroom air-conditioned tent in.
I think that 2: scientific skepticism should be compatible with everything reality-based that works. It’s often also beneficial to throw in a little 3: fluffy moderation as the spoon full of sugar to make the medicine go down.
From my very personal experience, scientific skeptics are not always the easiest people to get along with; partly due to their internal conflict between how rational they would like their brains to be and how irrational their brains actually are.
They will also often appear just as a-hole, absolutist-thinking deniers unless you have a lot of time on your hands to hear their ‘rants’; for it usually takes something like 10 times as many words to fully explain a concept with all the required nuances for the detailed skeptical point of view. Most people want the short version and can feel spammed if a kind skeptic tries to explain everything that is required in order to form their opinion. And if that kind skeptic also sprinkles in Skynet and "Oh Sam" jokes; listen to them and consider what it would take to change your mind...
1. Denier: Homeopathy is complete and utter BS. There is nothing to see here. Move along. Move along. It should immediately go the way of trepanation, the White Australia Policy and Gary Coleman. Anyone who believes is either ignorant or stupid or deluded or all of the above like a Gungan from the planet Naboo. The worst homeopathic extremists are about as likable as Bill Cosby doing an impression of Jar Jar Binks.
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5. ‘Benign’ believer: Homeopathy helps me with my ‘symptoms of life’. Big pharma shouldn't get all my money. There is something to placebo medicine that the establishment haven't worked out. But when I actually get ‘proper’ sick, I’ll go and see a doctor. Others are entitled to their own views and they don’t annoy me unless they are being nasty to me. Live and let die, I mean live.
No prizes for guessing which camp I have pitched my deluxe 4-bedroom air-conditioned tent in.
I think that 2: scientific skepticism should be compatible with everything reality-based that works. It’s often also beneficial to throw in a little 3: fluffy moderation as the spoon full of sugar to make the medicine go down.
From my very personal experience, scientific skeptics are not always the easiest people to get along with; partly due to their internal conflict between how rational they would like their brains to be and how irrational their brains actually are.
They will also often appear just as a-hole, absolutist-thinking deniers unless you have a lot of time on your hands to hear their ‘rants’; for it usually takes something like 10 times as many words to fully explain a concept with all the required nuances for the detailed skeptical point of view. Most people want the short version and can feel spammed if a kind skeptic tries to explain everything that is required in order to form their opinion. And if that kind skeptic also sprinkles in Skynet and "Oh Sam" jokes; listen to them and consider what it would take to change your mind...
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