And what is with Galileo and the round Earth? Didn’t this come up before on SBM? WTF? For the record, famous people who proved the Earth was round include Aristotle (d. 322 BCE), Ptolemy (d. c. 168 CE), and Copernicus (d. 1543 CE). Galileo was born in 1564 CE.

As for plausibility, one technique which I’ve been trying to pioneer is to use it ad hominem in the non-fallacious sense. For example, just say something like: “you don’t think that a mixture of car battery acid, mayonaise, silver powder and shredded saran wrap is a cure for cancer, right?” Then you can ask why not, etc. It isn’t even that your interlocutor has to think it isn’t; merely that it is *implausible* is enough. Plausibility (and its relative, consilience) help pare down what to test, since we cannot of course test everything in the universe in all combinations. It is vital to stress that this makes use of *background knowledge*, which is also largely tacit amongst scientists and technologists. Articulating the principles by which these inferences work is an open problem in the philosophy of science, one of which would have great benefits to investigate if more than a few truisms could be gathered.

These concepts are lost (or never introduced) to many studying science.

Prior probability absolutely is a factor in formulating the plausibility of some concept.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_probability

But biological plausibility is an excellent approach to weed out most of the CAM treatments.

It is neither plain nor simple to understand why a placebo that comes out of a tube that says “Boiron” should succeed when a remedy with conventional pharmacological properties should have failed. This phenomenon is messy, deep, and complex….I speculate (not assert) that some patients benefit from the sense of self-control that comes from taking charge of their own care.

By saying homeopathy is a placebo, plain and simple, I meant precisely that the placebo effect explains the reported “efficacy” of the treatment. I did not mean, as your specious comments infer, that the placebo effect is plain or simple. It is, obviously, quite a complex little devil. Nothing in your argument suggests anything other than a placebo effect, which includes (based on my understanding of the term) the individual’s sense of self-control to which you refer.

But this is a too wide definition of homeopathy. What you describe is the plausibility of the obvious theory that healthy lifestyle leads to more health. It has no relation to homeopathy. Using termiology in such a loose way you do is very much missleading.

I am OK with your approach, if homeopaths agree that the “memory of water”, “laws of similars” and “potentisation” is a nonsense. But now in more and more science universities they start teachin these non plausible theories. And this could happen because they mix things the way you are doing. Your examples and the tests shows that the theatre around the basic concepts of homeopathy has some effect, but they also show that the basic concepts themselves are not correct (because the placebo pills are working just fine as well).

I think if we speak about placebo and about using placebo in medicine, we have to separate the topics:

1/ Is the treatment works better than an adequate placebo? Is that placebo works better that no treatment?

2/ Is the proposed mechanism plausible and justified?

3/ Is it ethical and manageable to use placebos regularly in healthcare?

In most of the homeopathy tests the placebo is selected in a way that it helps testing the “similia, dilution, succussion” theory (mechanism). The homeopaths care with the patients in the same way in both arms of the test. In fact in good tests they are also blinded.

There are some setups that tests the “advanced care” theory and I guess they could be positive in several cases. But if one tells to a homeopath that his treatment is based upon the advanced care and not on Hahneman’s theory, he will definitely protest.

Who would argue, except, why select this one aspect of the homeopathic medical interaction? You quite rightly see any beneficial influences as not “pure, plain, or simple”.

The likelihood and the strength of beneficial non-specific patient responses to medical care (including what are generally regarded as placebo “effects”) will depend upon an extremely wide range of factors to do with the therapist, the patient, the consultation and include the characteristics and credibility of anything prescribed.

The placebo “treatment” will certainly often serve as a hook upon which the patient can hang a recovery for quite different reasons.

I distinguish between biological plausibility (the ostensible focus of this particular thread) and strength of evidence. I concede that I have no evidence for my premise, I deny the relevance of that lack to the present discussion, and assert that the lack of evidence (strength of effect, consistency of effect, and all those other Bradford Hill criteria) does not negate the plausibility that homeopathic history-taking may have a salutary effect.

It violates no biological principles for a process of information-gathering to create a change in the relationship between a patient and his/her symptoms. If the patient does the inquiry himself rather than spending good money on a consultation, biological plausibility is not violated. The homeopathic books generally require the reader to plow through a large number of possible remedies, matching the reader’s symptoms to the descriptions in the book. The process of taking control of one’s condition, and becoming more acutely aware of exacerbating and alleviating factors, still has a plausible influence on the course of the complaints.

I concede that there is a placebo effect, but deny that it is either pure, plain, or simple. As an explanatory principle, I find it wanting. I think I understand regression to the mean (a part of some of the alleged “effect” of placebo treatment). I have some notion of the power of suggestion on the severity of symptoms. But often patients go for homeopathy after conventional approaches have failed them. It is neither plain nor simple to understand why a placebo that comes out of a tube that says “Boiron” should succeed when a remedy with conventional pharmacological properties should have failed. This phenomenon is messy, deep, and complex.

I distinguish between homeopathic practice (the entire process of inquiry, clinician-patient interaction, prescribing) and homeopathic “remedies” (those little white pills that come in those funny blue cylinders). Avogadro’s number is pertinent to the latter, but not to the former. I reassert the proposition that remedies have nothing to do with the case. I speculate (not assert) that some patients benefit from the sense of self-control that comes from taking charge of their own care.

He was tried for heresy because when he propounded his views about the heliocentric model, he did it as a dialogue between 2 proponents of the opposing views. Pope Urban was actually a supporter of Galileo but asked that the book contain his personal views in favour of geocentrism. Galileo obliged by calling the character propounding those arguments in his book Simplicio, and made him appear somewhat foolish and error-prone. Urban took this as personal caricature, and hence Galileo ended up fronting the Holy Office.

People seem to like thinking that it was scientists and enemies who went after Galileo, but his downfall was brought about by a spat between former friends that came about b/c he couldn’t resist taking the piss out of his intellectual opponents. That will give you trouble when one of them is the most powerful political official in Europe !

Also the sun SEEMS to move around the earth. Galileo’s views were understandably counterintuitive for many in his day, imbued as they were also in religious beliefs that put man at the centre of the universe.

Homeopathy lies at an even deeper level of implausibility, since no one anywhere has ever been able to enhance any property of a solute by diluting it.

As a pediatrician I have had many parents who have used, and reported improvements using, homeopathic medicines. I would estimate that less than 1% have ever seen a homeopath. The “medicines” are usually purchased over the counter (Oscillococcinum anyone?), and so the history taking was non-existant. Pure placebo effect, plain and simple.

I don’t suppose you have any evidence for that.

“May be” paramount, that is as powerful as “may not be” paramount. It’s like crossing a street- you have a 50% chance of surviving because either you get hit by a car or not.

This impossibly lengthy and detailed history taking may well have an effect on patients, who must stop and consider aspects of their complaints that had previously been unconscious. The “remedies” themselves may have nothing to do with the case. But the spirit in which the history is taken, the attention paid to apparently “trivial” factors that exacerbate and relieve symptoms, and the awareness that is brought to bear on the complaint, could have therapeutic effects that are worth considering.

Now the plausibility of homeopathic practice shifts from violating the laws of chemistry and physics to the role of consciousness in healing. It may be objected that the responsive conditions are likely to be self-limiting, but most complaints that present to homeopaths have been present for considerable periods of time, and have not yet become limited. The questions in homeopathic history-taking often have to do with asking the patient, “How do you participate in the exacerbations of your condition?” Developing that awareness creates a biologically plausible explanation for the otherwise inexplicable. Avogadro’s number is irrelevant. The “ownership” of the course of the illness by the patient may be paramount.