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# And the people who try proper scientific research get shot down too...
Remember the Randi/Benveniste incident? Homoeopathy may well have nothing in it, but it deserved a chance, like any hypothesis, to prove itself. And if it fails proper research, then it fails.
(, Fri 26 Feb 2010, 15:30, archived)
# was that the case
Where it turned out they'd failed to do double blind testing, and had skewed the results?

The one were Randi taped the list of samples/placebos to the ceiling in a sealed envelope, and when they didn't know what they were testing, the results fell apart?
(, Fri 26 Feb 2010, 15:38, archived)
#
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Benveniste#Nature_publication_and_investigation

Nature's attitude sucked - they went in there with the intent to debunk, not investigate impartially. Randi isn't a scientist - he's a magician.
(, Fri 26 Feb 2010, 16:00, archived)
# There doesn't seem to have been any method opimisation.
If I remember right, the container with the liquid init has to be tapped three times with something special (a piece of mummified melton mowbrey pork pie wrapped in a turkish wrestler's jock strap) and only then does it have the magical properties.

I think that they should also provide the double blind test results from a statistically significant test of groups of people who have received the product of 'four-tap' technology as well, or maybe that is over egging it - perhaps two taps would be enough.

Another problem is the purity of the alcohol.

As I understand it, the idea is that you find something that causes symptoms that are similar and then dilute that down to nonexistence and you have your homeopathic cure. One of the main impurities in alcohol is acetaldehyde (ethanal - it is always in there, no matter how pure you make it - let air in there and you get acetaldehyde) which is one of the chemicals that gives you a hangover. Surely, that would obliterate the 'medicinal footprint' of the chemical that is supposed to have one (such as strychnine or whatever). So, you always have a cure for a hangover, whether it was originally for diabetes, cancer or death.
(, Fri 26 Feb 2010, 16:53, archived)