How homeopathy works

Recently, a site has appeared on the Internet on how homeopathy works ( www.howdoeshomeopathywork.com ). This site contains all the grains of knowledge accumulated by the perennial works of scientists from different countries and peoples, and are prompted in one single, but absolutely true thesis, formulated briefly and laconic: in any way [1] .

By and large, the doubt that “homeopathy works in no way” has not left since it became clear that the homeopathic remedy did not contain any active substance molecules. Classical homeopathic dilution of 30c (30 sequential dilutions of 1: 100) of one gram of substance is enough for the molecules of the original ingredient. How is the chemical law of the current masses violated that the greater the concentration of the substance, the faster the reaction proceeds? And he is not violated, because homeopathy acts "in any way."

Despite this, humanity has already spent millions of dollars and countless hours of work of researchers on research on homeopathy, which could be invested in the study of something worthwhile. All this to confirm the obvious thing: the eternal engine does not exist. Oh! Well, you understand. Indeed, generalizations of studies of the highest quality (in the Khukhranovsky reviews) clearly indicate that homeopathic drugs do not have an effect exceeding the placebo effect [2] .

The only unresolved mystery is the emergence of completely absurd articles on the benefits of homeopathy, including in the central media, such as the “Russian newspaper”, which are not embarrassed to promote outright nonsense [3, 4] , acting as a pseudoscience russer.

Let V yours home Pharmacy KE will "Cantaris" 30 p . CHARD​ burn - Take it five Peas knocked out And Send their under language . The pain will disappear , "leave" Bubbles . If Ef Fect insufficient , then Reception of the drug Can twice repeat .​ More often all Houses from burns suffer Children : That for iron Grasped , then​ overturned on myself hot​ tea . Our recommendations V These cases those the same .

"Cantaris." 30c. Children. With burns. "Russian newspaper." Your mother! And also the chief physician of the clinic of the classical homeopathy named after S. Ganeman Irina Kuzmina considers it acceptable to use homeopathy for " tick bite, acute phlegmon, abscesses. "

It is impossible, not feeling that they are mocking you, read the signature for the photograph shown in the article: "Before you take a place in the home first -aid kit, peas pass weight control."

Weight control! Wow! Well, if weight control has been passed, then this is exactly a serious enterprise, and not a bunch of charlatans! What quality control! What a thorough check of effectiveness! Indeed, what else to check in balls, in which, besides sugar, there is nothing? Only mass can they differ. By the way, what is Cantaris? “Cantaris” is a homeopathic remedy that is prepared from a span fly. In order to make a tincture, they take the fly entirely and crushed to a powder state. For rubbing, a fresh flush powder is used.

Wow! That is, it is a powder from a beetle. By the way, an interesting question: how, from the point of view of the homeopathic principle of treatment of “similar to the like”, is the fact that the powder of the Fly Fly, presumably, is an aphrodisiac (though quite toxic)? However, this is nothing. After all, there is also a powder from a bone of tyrannosaurus, oil and even dust from a vacuum cleaner. Fortunately, as we have already installed, the ingredient does not matter, since it is not in the drug. However, it recently turned out that in some drugs homeopaths still secretly mixed active components, which caused fears of FDA, the American service control and medicine. For example, some homeopathic drugs were added [5] antibiotic penicillin, which can sometimes cause allergies. Usually people know that they are allergic to an antibiotic, but when its presence hides, an unforeseen complication may occur.

It is clear that homeopathy can advertise:

a) people who do not even own the school level of knowledge;

b) charlatans who want to make money on dummies (the market for homeopathic products in Russia is billions of rubles);

c) people who have never thought about what homeopathy is, but still write about it.

What do sellers of dummies working "no" count on? Yes, there is a placebo effect. And the apologists of homeopathy will say: well, it works like a placebo, wonderful; It helps someone, will not make it worse! But the placebo effect helps primarily with all sorts of small sores, for example, eliminates pain. Only now, advertising of homeopathy leads to the fact that this nonsense begins to treat everything in a row (from a cold to cancer), and this may have serious consequences.

The article in the Rossiya Gazeta is very indicative in this sense. Therefore, the placebo effect does not justify the existence of homeopathy. In addition, placebo could be distributed for free. Yes, the effectiveness of the placebo is higher if people think that it is expensive [6] , but nothing prevents saying that this is an expensive medicine purchased by the state to take care of citizens. This lies for the good, unlike billions of business on dummies, can be understood.

One of the most important effects that forces people to believe in the imaginary effectiveness of homeopathy (and other garbage) is called “regression to the middle”. At different times, our well -being can jump from very bad to very good. But on average it is normal. Normal well -being is therefore called. This is the most probable state of our body throughout life. The disease is not the norm. With the disease, our body fights through the immune system. And most often this ends with recovery. We often get the flu and, as a rule, do not think that our life hangs in the balance and depends on taking the drug; that we will never get better. But we do not even imagine how much potential diseases our body reflects before the situation reaches at least some tangible symptoms or consequences.

To external factors that negatively affect our health and well -being, we can also adapt over time. Some diseases take place with age. Even some very serious diseases, such as cancer, in rare cases can pass themselves, without treatment. This is called spontaneous remission. The culprit, again, is an immune system that does not give up to the last.

This does not mean that it is not necessary to be treated - it is necessary if in clinical trials it is shown that the proposed medicine increases the chances of recovery. Simply cases of recovery after taking a homeopathic dummy do not allow us to establish the reason for improving health and are not an occasion to recognize all the knowledge of mankind in the field of chemistry, physics, biology and medicine false. Post Hoc Ergo Propter HOC (“after means”) is a classic mistake of human thinking, do not commit it.

Post hoc Ergo Propter HOC ( "After Means due to " ) - a common logical error . A It happened after B. ​You You think that from This follows that a It became reason B. ​IN reality It's nothing Not Means . A : Rooster Cooking . B : It got up Sun . Kukarking Causes sunrise Sun ? Of course not . IN case With homeopathy People erroneously tied A - The adoption of homeopathic Dummies and B - Recovery . This One from Explanations of popularity myth that homeopathy works.

There is such a property of people's thinking - apofenia: it is a search for relationships in random data. The man saw how a black cat crossed his path, and then a misfortune happened to the man. And he tied these two unrelated things and formulated a prejudice. Homeopathy is the same prejudice. People tied improvement of well-being-a return to the norm-with some arbitrary factor, taking a dummy ball. That's the whole secret.

There is another interesting property of the human psyche described in the book of Anthropologist Pascal Buaye “Explanation of Religion”. The point is that people of completely different crops have a built -in concept of “contagiousness” from birth. Even before the discovery of the existence of microbes, people felt that the objects may have invisible properties that can be transmitted from object to object (or person) through contact, and that these properties are not subject to dilution. One dead cockroach can ruin the whole pot of borsch; Moreover, we will think twice before kissing a person who will try a spoon of such borsch. The concept of infection is generally understandable: it protected us from epidemics long before we realized what it was.

The “man -made objects” and “people of the lower caste” who cannot be touched so as not to become infected were the side effect. Homeopathy, apparently, uses this innate view as a kind of Trojan horse to tightly gain a foothold in our psyche. We refuse knowledge in favor of instincts saying that even after an endless number of dilutions, some “invisible essence” of a certain substance still remains.

More one example dangerous For health citizens nonsense published​ V "Russian newspaper " : " K. us ( homeopaths . - approx . Ed . ) With different So called sharp diseases : acute Purulent Angina , phlegmon , sharp Otit , sharp Bronchitis , acute microbial eczema , bubble And So Next . < ... > at treatment acute infectious diseases our Means Activate protective mechanisms immune systems man "

A very interesting study was published on the topic of the “Concept of Pollution” in 2011 [7] . It is known that people are ready to pay a huge amount of money for objects that belonged to celebrities. For example, a rocking chair of the murdered US President John Kennedy was sold for $ 453,500, and a desk at which Kennedy signed a ban on nuclear tests in 1963, as much as $ 1,230,000! Of course, the point is not that this table or chair of some exclusive quality or utility.

There are three reasonable explanations of why people are ready to pay so much for the subject belonging to the celebrity. Firstly, objects can remind us of people, just as souvenirs remind us of the beautiful places where we once were. In this case, the objects of those people who cause admiration and positive emotions should be very expensive, but the objects of the people whom everyone hate is hardly. Secondly, someone can buy objects of purely mercantile considerations, realizing that they have demand and that in the future they can either be resold more, or impress other people with such valuable objects. Finally, the concept Pollution : objects carry some invisible essence of the former owners to which we want to join. In the study under discussion, it was possible to show that if the subject refers to a celebrity well, then the more celebrity physically contacted the subject of clothing, the more the desire to buy or try on. But if the celebrity causes hostility in the subject, then the opposite is true: the more contact, the less desire to buy or measure the item.

Costs note that sometimes​ homeopathic remedies Call some extracts herbs , oil á and other drugs , c which All the same There is no too much Diluted active Component . Such Theoretically , drugs could​ would work and​ their It is worth discussing V Individual order . Those Not less homeopathy call them Weird .

For comparison: if you emphasize that there is a high demand in the market for the subject, the desire to buy it increases regardless of the attitude to the celebrity, and the desire to measure it practically does not change. I also liked the reference to the study, where it was shown that in stores men willingly measure the sweater, which was measured by a pretty consultant girl, but they are embarrassed if the sweater measured the stranger. Here is such a "magical" thinking in people. As far as the concept of pollution is related to the popularity of homeopathic dilutions among believers in homeopathy (and who know about these dilutions), the question is controversial, but, in my opinion, this is an interesting hypothesis in the piggy bank of the explanation.

Today we understand whether homeopathy works (no) how homeopathy works (no way), and we have explanations of why people think that it can work. So is it time to put a large fat cross on this terry pseudo -dungeon, which is so expensive for humanity? Maybe it is enough to spend limited resources of our type of production, transportation and trade of outright garbage? Maybe it's time to prohibit the advertisement of the charlatan treatment method? Maybe that's enough to allocate money to study complete nonsense? They stopped issuing patents on eternal engines.

I emphasize that this is a problem not only in Russia, but also the whole world. How much more scientific publications should appear in which the absence of the effect of homeopathy will be shown, so that they will finally cease to believe in it? It's time to change your mind if we do not want to become victims of natural selection.

1. Www.howdoeshomeopathywork.com

2. Ernst E. Homeopathy: What Does the " Best " Evi Dance Tell Us? // The Medical Journal of Australia. 2010. 192 (8). 458 - 460

3. Www.rg.ru/2014/08/14/gomeopatiya.html

4. Www.rg.ru/2014/08/07/gomeopatia.html

5. Www.fda.gov/safety/medwatch/safetyinformation/safetylertsforhumanMedicalProducts/ucm39000.htm

6. Waber RL, SHIV B., Carmon Z., Ariely D. Commercial Features of Placebo and Therapeutic Efficacy // Joma: The Journal of the American Medical Association. 2008. 299 (9). 1016 - 1017

7. Newman G.E., Diesendruck G., Bloom P. Celebrity Contagion and the Value of Objects // J. Consum. Res. 2011. 38. 215 - 228