The plural of "anecdote" is not "fact"

Something to remember when arguing in favor of homeopathy or other quack remedies: The plural of "anecdote" is not "fact".

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

Could you imagine the chief engineer at Boeing building a plane, and saying “ancient wisdom and several people on the Internet told me square shaped wings work great, I’m going to try them.” They would instead try several different shaped wings in a wind tunnel under a bazillion different conditions, and go with the best shape. “I know X shaped wings perform the best in these expected conditions, and I have 50,000 tests to prove that, and anyone who wants to challenge me can try the same experiment and see the same result” seems stronger than “somebody told me.”

Would you really use a different principle when your health is concerned? If you’re really passionate about non-science, heres an anecdote: I glued feathers to my arms and flapped real hard and I can fly and you can too. Give it a shot and let me know how it works.
mhlaxp

This is just another reminder that correlation does not imply causation. I’m sure most of us have seen this:

http://www.americanthinker.com/piratesarecool4.jpg

I think it illustrates the point fairly well.

And yes, there can be a placebo effect, but using placebos in place of actual treatment is dangerous. I am not a doctor (and nothing in this post constitutes any sort of medical advice – see a real doctor) but my understanding is that the effects of placebos extend to that which the brain has control over, including evolved responses like pain, fever, and sickness behavior. However, for more serious conditions, placebo treatment can be dangerous. Things such as faith healing, which I would put into the same category as homeopathic medicine, are often used as “treatments” for cancer in place of actual treatment. I’ve met people who would rather go to someone who uses the powers of their god to heal patients than to actual doctors. Believe in the healing power of your faith, it doesn’t matter to me, but please also acknowledge that perhaps your god put medical science on this planet for a reason and that that too is within your faith.

To supporters of homeopathic medicine, I would give the same advice (if I were in the business of advice-giving): learn the facts, and if it makes you feel good, by all means do it, but speak to your doctor and get real medical treatment as well (and make sure that the two don’t interfere). Just as you may not want to ignore the possible healing effects of homeopathic medicine, you should not throw out what your doctor has to say, either.
- Anonymous
  
  The ideas that “using placebos in place of actual treatment is dangerous” depends not on the placebo effect, but on the treatment desired. The mind can affect the body in some ridiculous ways, often without really trying that much. For example, pregnant women whose babies were in the breech position who were just told positive things about the pregnancy (“The baby WILL turn around!”) were significantly more likely to have the babies “spontaneously” flip back over.
  
  And that’s just the one study I can think of off the top of my head; the placebo effect, in any of its forms, can be seen in tons of medical miracles. Maybe the problem isn’t that we try to use the placebo effect, maybe the problem is that we don’t do it very well.
Christopher James

And here I thought the plural of anecdote was “grant proposal”.

Anecdotes lack the kind of controls and statistical design of a good experiment, no matter how many of them you have. I’d agree anecdotes are a kind of data. From my perspective they are the kind of data that only answers the question “Is this phenomenon worth studying?”
Anonymous

I’m all for rigor around homeopathy, but let’s not forget the placebo effect, which western medicine is at odds to explain away. So much for the scientific method. Listen to this show on WNYC

http://tinyurl.com/yoxuc2
arkizzle / Moderator

Oh, and..

“I don’t want to take a medicine that supresses symptoms, which can easily be shown in a DB test. I want something that makes me feel better.”

Medicine is for fixing you. Maybe margheritas for the other thing?
Anonymous

The not-so-funny thing about anecdotal evidence is that there are too many people doing hard time because of it.
Anonymous

Name calling “quack” does not refute evidence.
Tzctlp

If homoeopathy is not a science, can you all deniers kindly explain how it comes that institutions like the IPN in Mexico teaches it? :

http://www.ipn.mx/wps/wcm/connect/IPN%20HOME/ipn/estructura+principal/oferta+educativa/superior/ciencias+medico-biologicas/tituloacademico_enmh_med_cir_hom

Medical practitioners with background in homoeopathy have been common currency in Mexico for decades.

And before you ask, the IPN is the second most important public higher education institution in Mexico.

You may not know about scientific study of the discipline, that does not mean there is none.
- Brainspore
  
  You may not know about scientific study of the discipline, that does not mean there is none.
  
  There has been plenty of scientific study of the discipline. The problem is that none of those studies showed any positive result.
- arkizzle / Moderator
  
  Tzctip,
  
  Please don’t cross-post, you already posted that in the homeopathy thread.
Anonymous

It’s more clever if you say:

The plural of “anecdote” is not “data”.

Because, as we all know, “fact” is not the plural form of ANY word.
Anonymous

I did floow thru the 10:23 twitter to a link to a scientific study: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WXX-4Y5H4MM-8&_user=10&_coverDate=01%2F31%2F2010&_fmt=abstract&_orig=browse&_cdi=7170&view=c&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=7a68cce47f86891a080925a213a9d113&ref=full
Nierd

In the case of warts – I work with a guy who had a wart on his heel – he ended up having it surgically removed – it bled horribly.

The bad thing was it came back within a month – and it was worse than before.

Not wanting to go through the pain he tried a ‘vinegar wrap’ around the wart – and the thing got smaller every day until it went away.

Perhaps it’s an anecdote – then again perhaps vinegar works – there certainly was no money involved or sugar pill in this case – and a direct visible effect – that’s pretty good evidence in my opinion.
- Rob
  
  Vinegar is an acid and may very well work; some of the OTC removers for callouses and such is just salicylic acid.
  
  That’s also not homeopathy.
  - Snig
    
    Similar recommended treatment is a tab of aspirin under a bandaid (also not homeopathy).
- arkizzle / Moderator
  
  Nierd,
  
  Traditional remedy is not the same as homeopathy. There’s lots of traditional remedies that work and are based on scientific principles. In fact lots of our beneficial medicines have developed out of the “old ways” and traditional-usage, when investigated further.
  
  Although, that’s still not a strike against “the plural of anecdote..”
- Anonymous
  
  “Not wanting to go through the pain he tried a ‘vinegar wrap’ around the wart – and the thing got smaller every day until it went away.
  
  Perhaps it’s an anecdote – then again perhaps vinegar works – there certainly was no money involved or sugar pill in this case – and a direct visible effect – that’s pretty good evidence in my opinion.”
  
  Actually, the wrap may have had more to do with it than the vinegar. I don’t know why you’re mentioning this as if it disproves homeopathy because the principles behind that are well-known by science. Lasers and stronger acids are used for quickness/consistency, but those dr. scholl’s warty wraps (or simple tape!) are just as endorsed by doctors for those who want a solution that costs less at the expense of time.
ogp

I’ve heard the phrase with a slightly different wording that adds to the overall effect, I think, since it actually ends with a plural form of a word often mistaken for the singular: The plural of “anecdote” is not “data”.
Ito Kagehisa

Alright, I tracked it down with my mighty Google-fu.

The statement “The plural of anecdote is data” was apparently made by Paul Wolfinger. He believes it was originally said some time in the 1969-70 academic year while teaching a graduate seminar at Stanford.

The reverse formulation “the plural of anecdote is not data” has become an Internet meme. I find this amusing and wonder if someone is laughing hysterically somewhere.

This anecdote is a single data point. Gather ye others where ye may.
- Anonymous
  
  Well researched and well said!! (Except I’m quite certain his name is Raymond Wolfinger.)
  
  It is interesting, isn’t it, that the negative mis-quote has gained such popularity.
  
  It is also interesting to note that from the scientific process point of view … anecdotes can and may lead one to posit a theory; test of that theory (via proper scientific process of establishing testing and repeatable results)offers up data; Said data will either prove or disprove the theory – and hence the anecdotes.
  
  Or to put it another way… sometimes there actually is something to some of those urban legends! ;-)
searconflex

This is a very strange post. Essentially a redirect back to an engaging discussion, when in fact it could have been a comment in said discussion. Curious.
Anonymous

You know what they call alternative medicine that has been proved to work ????? MEDICINE
friendpuppy

The heart of the scientific method is to develop an explanation of a phenomenon, test it, and if it doesn’t work, try something else.
holtt

The plural of “anecdote” is not “fact”

Let’s remember that when we “discuss” other topics too, lest we be pots calling the kettle black.
Ito Kagehisa

Are you trolling, Cory? The plural of anecdote is DATA.
gregSea

My favorite comment on homoeopathy is this one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVV3QQ3wjC8

There’s lot of bad things you can say about scientific medicine. But at least their stuff could *possibly* work. Homoeopathy is one of the very few alternative medicines that you can be absolutely sure is bunk. It’s almost as it was designed to be a transparent scam.

OTOH I suppose you could say that it’s pure placebo effect. I’d actually love to see someone attempt to make an honest placebo-based treatment system. My guess is that humans compartmentalize enough that it could work if properly designed…
dharrison

An equally important concept to remember is that according to proper scientific method, even scientifically supported “facts” should be regarded skeptically – with some attention to the bulk and quality of research supporting them.

A black swan should always be considered a possibility. Look at how much resistance was mounted by the scientific community to accepting that H. pylori caused ulcers.
MichaeltheG

Hmmmmm…….first off, without a commonly agreed definition of what “homeopathy” is, you lot are barking at different sides of the same tree.

I suspect it would be helpful to differentiate between “alternative medicine” and homeopathy. Further, unless I miss your intent, it’s not that homeopathy is bad in and of itself but rather that when someone utilizes homeopathy over a traditional medical treatment for certain ailments they can flipping DIE.

If you have a fever that is getting into the 107+ F range you are rapidly approaching the point of permanent damage if not death and getting into a tub full of ice water (Natural? Yep. “Homeopathic”? Uhm, again, what the hell does it mean???) would be very helpful in rapidly lowering your temp. Does that mean you shouldn’t A: take an OTC fever reducer to help manage the symptom and B: seek immediate medical attention to keep you from dying? Of course not.

As for certain remedies that are listed or marketed as “homeopathic” that upon closer inspection have actual “medicine” in them, you get to charge more money for the perceived “natural” product. It’s all market fragmentation gang! My all-time favorite was a headache remedy that touted it’s “Aspen bark tincture”. The stuff was 17 bucks a bottle. Care to know what’s in “Aspen Bark Tincture”? It’s a chemical called salycin, and it is a VERY close relative of acetylsalicylic acid AKA ASPIRIN. Like close enough that people who have allergies to Aspirin are advised to avoid the stuff. An equivalent bottle of Aspirin was $1.59 at the drugstore across the street.

I guess I don’t have a problem with Homeopathy. I have a problem with people taking advantage of ignorance to line their pockets.
Anonymous

Ito Kagehisa got the source … “The plural of anecdote is data” R Wolfinger, 1969. However, I see what you’re saying Cory and while it may irk some folks, I’d say what you are saying is quite true if interpreted to mean ‘just because there is more than one piece of anecdotal evidence, does not indicate fact until the anecdotal evidence is corroborated by data’.

Actually, it’s a very nice re-interpretation of Wolfinger’s quote – especially in these days of ‘instant experts’.
jonmrich

While we’re at it, it’s worth pointing out that “factoid” means: “an invented fact believed to be true because of its appearance in print.”

I love it when I see the news media put up something labeled as a factoid when they go to commercial. Huge credibility boost for me.
dragonfrog

My wife has an ointment for muscle pain, which she swears by. The label says it’s homeopathic, but in fact it can’t be, as evidenced by:

1 – the efficacy of the ointment

2 – the presence of actual medicinal ingredients at the level of parts-per-hundred – something like 8 or 10% of the total volume of the cream is medicinal herbal extracts (they may be herbs commonly used in homeopathy, for all I know)

This drives me mental – it isn’t quackery masquerading as effective medicine, it’s effective medicine masquerading as quackery, presumably on the theory that quackery will sell better.
- Snig
  
  If it’s any consolation, labelling the ointment homeopathic would likely also give a traditional homeopath hives and the screaming heeby jeebies as well.
Anonymous

MichaelTheG: when I was a child my mother saved my father’s life, quite literally, by dragging his limp body up the stairs and into the bathtub. My sister and I ran up and down the street getting all the ice from the neighbor’s freezers (in those days people didn’t lock their doors) and we dumped it in with him, where it started melting as soon as it touched his body. What was wrong with him? Extreme reaction to a medication that an MD had given him! My mother, being a medical technician, knew better than to “A: take an OTC fever reducer to help manage the symptom and B: seek immediate medical attention to keep you from dying” as you recommend. If she’d done that, he would have died or at least suffered brain damage.

I have a problem with people claiming that they know everything because they read something somewhere. If it didn’t happen to you, in front of your own eyes, if you didn’t touch it with your own fingers, it’s hearsay to you. Hearsay is not science, it’s just gossip, no matter what you believe. You aren’t a scientist just because you read science on the Internet.
Tdawwg

Actually, yeah, the plural of anecdote does indeed mean, roughly, “fact.” From the OED: anecdote:

Secret, private, or hitherto unpublished narratives or details of history.

Another meaning is

The narrative of a detached incident, or of a single event, told as being in itself interesting or striking.

Compare this with a basic definition of fact:

Something that has really occurred or is actually the case; something certainly known to be of this character; hence, a particular truth known by actual observation or authentic testimony, as opposed to what is merely inferred, or to a conjecture or fiction; a datum of experience, as distinguished from the conclusions that may be based upon it.

So, yeah, facts: at its most basic sense fact is “a thing done.” And anecdotes are largely built out of facts, like all narratives.

I sort of have to point out as a philologue and teacher-type, that generally when quibbling over the definitions of words, dictionaries, particularly large ones, are of some help, especially when marshaling linguistic evidence to dispel opinion and conjecture. And that’s a fact!

Ito Kagehisa@43, good of you to point that out. I’m definitely laughing!
Anonymous

So true – it’s like the Bermuda Triangle – a bunch of anecdotes that happen to have one thing in common may look like a fact, but if you pay attention to the greater whole, it’s clear that they actually don’t form the trend you thought they did.

On the subject of homeopathic remedies, though most of it is quackery, but there are plenty of things we take that started out as homeopathic remedies. Sometimes they warrant further study (with SCIENCE! not more anecdotes)
Anonymous

D’oh. Just woke up, that was me saying homeopathic things might warrant further study. Nope. I meant natural/traditional/alternative remedies, but not diluting stuff until there is just water with a “memory”
arikol

@lukkas
NO scientific method requires proof, a mechanism for working, prediction, repeatability etc.

It’s the prediction, repeatability, proof, and mechanism for working which homeopathy fails.
It:
1. hasn’t been proven to work (heck, even drinking your own urine has been shown to have effects on your body), so no prediction has worked,
2. the mechanism for it to work was made up around 1850 (when bloodletting was the alternative, good thing that science keeps the good ideas and throws the bad ones out, evolves) by one guy who pulled it out of his own posterior,
3. as it hasn’t been shown to work no experiment can be repeated

Homeopathy fails on ALL levels, including its practitioners saying each time AFTER it doesn’t work in a trial “well, it just doesn’t work like /regular/ science, this is outside normal understanding” and we all know that if it HAD worked they would have said a different thing.

I think it’s severely unethical to sell this crap as being a medicine simply because lying to sick people who are vulnerable and WANT to believe in any crazy cure is wrong.
I study cognitive science, and the formation and internal support of false beliefs (thinking and logic errors) is something which fascinates me. I could write more on that but I’ll spare you guys for now.
funkyderek

The singular of “anecdote” is not “anaecdote”.
pato pal ur

Maybe it’s just an anecdote, but we’d been trying for over a year to get rid of a couple of warts on my 4-year-old daughter’s fingers through conventional medicine with no success. Finally we tried homeopathic remedies a few months ago and that cleared it up almost right away. Freaky! Even I couldn’t believe it.

Not necessarily arguing for this type of medicine as I really don’t much about it (it’s my wife who’s the believer) but it’s kind of hard to argue against it when it works. Maybe sometimes there’s really something to it and sometimes it’s pure bunkum? I’ve no idea.

I like the idea of questioning and challenging things so now I’ll start thinking about this a bit more critically.
- Anonymous
  
  “Maybe it’s just an anecdote, but we’d been trying for over a year to get rid of a couple of warts on my 4-year-old daughter’s fingers through conventional medicine with no success. Finally we tried homeopathic remedies a few months ago and that cleared it up almost right away. Freaky! Even I couldn’t believe it.”
  
  Uh, you dipped them in water and the wart went away? Because anything else would have included non-homeopathic ingredients/methods. Just because a remedy is “natural”, doesn’t make it “homeopathic”. By that, I mean that there are plenty of over the counters sold as homeopathic but not homeopathic (meaning, actually including active ingredients and not just water.)
  
  Also, tape on the finger works more effectively than anything, at least as effective as burning the wart off.
- Anonymous
  
  just wanted to say that your last sentence was excellent :) too bad there’s no way to give +1 rep here :D
- funkyderek
  
  You’re right. That is just an anecdote. Warts, especially childhood warts, tend to go away by themselves eventually. In your case, this happened to (more-or-less) coincide with the time when you gave your daughter sugar pills.
  A way to determine whether the treatment works would be to take 100 children with warts, give 50 of them normal sugar pills and the other 50 pills that have been blessed by a homeopath. If there is a significant difference between the recovery rates of the two groups then there may be something to it.
  I know, you’re thinking “where am I going to find 100 warty kids?” But no need. Homeopathy has been tested time and time again and found to be no more effective than placebo (unsurprising, as it is only a placebo).
  - pato pal ur
    
    I suppose it’s possible the warts just went away by themselves. That’s what we were told over and over what would happen, so perhaps it was a case of correlation and not causation? Possibly I’m making an unproven assumption in thinking that the homeopathy cured the warts.
    
    Yes, I’ve no idea what was really in those pills. But to be completely honest with ourselves, you must admit that you don’t know what was in them either, so your statement that they were “sugar pills” is also an assumption!
    
    Maybe we’re both suffering from incorrect assumptions, but I’m open to challenging and questioning mine. I’m glad this topic has come up in this blog and given me the opportunity to do so.
- knodi
  
  Yes, you’re right – it’s just an anecdote. I had a serious allergy attack, took a homeopathic remedy, and did NOT get better. Poof, I have annihilated your (+anecdote) with a (-anecdote).
  
  That’s particle physics for you, or as some would call it “allopathic sciency stuff”
Antinous / Moderator

In medicine, ‘facts’ are often built up from ‘anecdotes’. Data is often received verbally from patients or test subjects and is reliant on them having stuck to the diet, taken the meds, etc. Outside of physics, chemistry and related disciplines, most sciences rely on anecdotes adding up to facts. Unless, of course, you consider disciplines like anthropology and psychology to be voodoo.
- Brainspore
  
  In medicine, ‘facts’ are often built up from ‘anecdotes’. Data is often received verbally from patients or test subjects and is reliant on them having stuck to the diet, taken the meds, etc.
  
  Only if you define “anecdote” as “any and all verbal testimony.” A direct answer to a question like “did you take your medicine today?” is not an “anecdote” according to the commonly accepted meaning of that term.
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    The term “anecdotal evidence” is used in medicine and other sciences. When you go to your doctor and tell her what’s wrong with you, that’s considered anecdotal. Your anecdotal description of your symptoms will almost certainly end up as data in some study or another.
    - Brainspore
      
      “I have a headache” is not an anecdote. “My head hurts because I’m allergic to radio waves” (in the absence of a properly controlled test) is an anecdote.
      
      Anecdotes can be scientifically useful in the sense that they can inspire someone to conduct a real study (i.e., let’s test whether radio waves CAN cause headaches) but the anecdote itself is not scientific evidence.
      - Antinous / Moderator
        
        In the medical sense, “I have a headache” is anecdotal.
      - Brainspore
        
        Again, only if you broaden the definition of “anecdote” to “any and all verbal testimony,” which is not the commonly used meaning of the word. (Please don’t make me pull out the Wikipedia.)
- Anonymous
  
  That’s sort of true, but in practice there’s a difference between systematically collected data and what usually happens with collected anecdotes. The important thing is how much room you leave for confirmation bias.
lukkas

At its heart, isn’t the scientific method simply a formalized process for gathering lots of anecdotes to prove a fact?

The mere presence of a large number of anecdotes does not a fact make. But take that population, filter it through the scientific method, and you’ve got a fact!
- Anonymous
  
  The scientific method does not gather anecdotes in order to prove a fact. The scientific method gathers experimental evidence, which over time can be synthesized into a theory. There is a world of difference between evidence and a personal story repeated to someone else.
Anonymous

Another important one to remember (that I’ve heard so many times now it’s starting to annoy me) is “correlation does not imply causation”.

Pato – “It’s kind of hard to argue against it when it works.” Indeed, but how do you know that it was the homeopathy that cleared up the warts and not some other change in diet/lifestyle or even removal from the conventional medicine? Your sample size of one is not statistically significant!
TEKNA2007

I turned my computer on this morning. Then the sun rose. Did I cause the sun to rise?

I also had a wart, but it went away on its own. The other one went away because I cut it the **** out.
Axx

This whole issue could be moot. It seems the underlying assumption is that retailers should be held responsible for their customers beliefs. I’m not really sure if we want to go there: who decides what beliefs are correct? What determines efficacy of medicine?

When you start offloading personal responsibility (of the customer) onto corporations and governmental bodies, you wind up with a hell of a lot of complex issues that…well, goshdarnit, you might not have thought existed at first.
eNons3nse

No. The heart of the scientific method is not anecdotes. Anecdotes are only good to indicate where further study may be necessary. The heart of the scientific method in most cases is the double-blinded study/test, but really the method as a whole is equally important. The placebo effect alone is enough to account for a huge amount of anecdotes where medicine is concerned. A blinded study will expose this. I suggest you do more reading on what the scientific method actually is before you make such claims.

In the case of the warts, warts actually sometimes go away on their own. No evidence has been shown that water can “remember” an active ingredient after becoming diluted 10,000x and become more effective with further dilutions. Water is a simple 3 atom molecule. It flies in the face of any sense. Maybe confirmation bias is at work here?
malathion

Science people are starting to sound like evangelical Christians. Everything else is suspect and evil. Double-blind is fine for science, but I don’t live in a double-blind test. I don’t want to take a medicine that supresses symptoms, which can easily be shown in a DB test. I want something that makes me feel better, which is much harder to quantify. So instead of quntifying, we change the parameters, set up a straw man that concerns only cessation of symptoms, and knock it down.

Thus, nothing is scientifically more stupid than modern medicine. The real roots of science are about trying things and seeing if they work. Due to ridiculous pissing contests in the scientific community it has devolved into explaining why things work, and mostly no one outside the pissing match cares. Take the story about what happens when a rock hits a pond as a great example.

What about the experiments they do on monks that show meditation changes brain structure? How are you going to double-blind that? Science can scan my brain, tell various things about my mood perhaps, but they can’t, with all their screens, show a picture of what I’m imagining. Get back to me about how great science is when you can do that.
- arkizzle / Moderator
  
  malathion,
  
  That was genuinely the pissiest tirade against science I’ve heard in a long time.
  
  How about: turn off your computer, go down to your breaker box and turn off your mains electricity, go throw out all the medicine in your cupboards, don’t even think about using your car to go anywhere, or your phone to contact anyone, or your mp3 player to listen to music (which was all made on equipment you aren’t allowed to benefit from anymore), don’t die anytime soon from smallpox, and get back to us when you decide science has benefitted your life in a thousand ways.
- Brainspore
  
  Thus, nothing is scientifically more stupid than modern medicine. The real roots of science are about trying things and seeing if they work.
  
  Yes, and science has thoroughly tested homeopathy to see if it works any better than a placebo. (It doesn’t.) That doesn’t mean homeopathy is “evil,” it just means that it isn’t supported by evidence. It only crosses the line into “evil” when it is marketed otherwise.
  
  What about the experiments they do on monks that show meditation changes brain structure? How are you going to double-blind that?
  
  Simple!
  
  1. Have some researchers hook up a bunch of monks to brain scanners.
  2. Randomly select X number of monks to practice meditation, while the rest just sit there.
  3. Have other researchers examine the scan results from another location. If they can reliably tell the difference between the brain images of monks who were meditating from the ones who were not, then you have strong scientific evidence that meditation creates a measurable effect on the brain.
Anonymous

Hi lukkas,
The “heart” of the scientific “method” is _REPEATABILITY_. The same starting conditions, the same actions, the same results. That is why medicine often veers away from science. The starting conditions (the state of an entire living human body) are very hard to control.
therling

Always be wary of evidence from any study with an N of one.
Frank W

I can’t afford facts. Only governments and corporations have that kind of money.
BJN

The scientific method is not a method of filtering anecdotes. If you think that, you don’t know how science is done.

“Only a placebo” ignores that the placebo effect is real (verified by scientific studies) and can be very effective. Unfortunately, it’s hard to use ethically. So it’s employed by the unethical: homeopathy and a vast array of sham alternative “medicine” industries.
Quasilaur

It’s incredible just how angry people can get over other’s willingness to go ahead and believe in something that is not quantifiable. Human beings believe in unscientific things, or bend what are essentially emotional experiences into scientific terms all the time.

How many scientific studies prove one thing, and then years later, it turns out that another scientific study claims the earlier one is flawed? How many times are nuggets of “conventional wisdom” proven by science, and then refuted? It seems that whenever a new finding crops up, either the new or the old one is called “bad science.”

What I’m trying to say is that for something that is supposed to be without emotional interference, and about the cold, hard facts of reality – people sure do get worked up about it.

Human beings take part in transactions every day in order to feel better. Consumer culture is all about creating a need/desire, and then offering fulfillment. Homeopathy is crap at curing anything. Modern medicine is also, sometimes, crap and curing a few select things, yet people are willing to throw money at expensive, scientifically researched treatments of varying efficacy (some later to be found of zero efficacy) delivered by Big Pharm and the for-profit medical industry because people don’t like the idea that anything is “incurable.” Just because science has backed it at one point, and just because it has a quantifiable effect, doesn’t mean it actually makes a difference (see the early cancer screening/treatment.) People are engaging in the same wishful thinking, and the efficacy found is still probably just in the transaction delivering a placebo effect.

For my money, I’d rather take a sugar pill if all I get is a placebo effect. I don’t care if they have quantifiable proof that an SSRI does *something* to the serotonin levels in my brain. A recent study shows that for a majority of users, they’re just as well off with a placebo. Given I’ve had an extremely bad reaction to SSRI’s, I’ll take the sugar pill, thanks.
- Rob
  
  You don’t get it. It *IS* quantifiable, and it *HAS* been shot down.
  - Anonymous
    
    Sources please.
- Anonymous
  
  “How many scientific studies prove one thing, and then years later, it turns out that another scientific study claims the earlier one is flawed? How many times are nuggets of “conventional wisdom” proven by science, and then refuted? It seems that whenever a new finding crops up, either the new or the old one is called “bad science.”
  
  Science is an Iterative process. We start with a theory and as we collect additional information we revise the theory. New findings do not necessarily brand either the old theory or the new one as bad science. What does happen is that a theory is either falsified, modified, or qualified.
- foobar
  
  We’re not angry about people believing in magic water fairies. If you want to do that, have at it. No one is upset at Amazon for selling communion wafers.
  
  If you want to practice homeopathy, go for it. Just don’t pretend it’s medicine. Be honest about what you’re doing, and you’ll have the blessing of any reasonable person.
  
  We would be upset if Amazon sold those wafers as medical, rather than religious supplies.
Zac

It’s a good thing that water doesn’t “remember” everything that’s been diluted into it too. Anyone want to take a guess at how many poisons and carcinogens have at some point, in some small concentration or another, come into contact with your drinking water?

If infinitely diluted ingredients work just as well as the full dose then we’d all be rotting poison masses of tumors by now. But, we’d be wart free!