{"id":124,"date":"2010-04-20T22:19:20","date_gmt":"2010-04-20T22:19:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/2010\/04\/20\/quantum_homeopathic_flapdoodle\/"},"modified":"2010-12-21T20:13:42","modified_gmt":"2010-12-21T20:13:42","slug":"quantum_homeopathic_flapdoodle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/2010\/04\/20\/quantum_homeopathic_flapdoodle\/","title":{"rendered":"Quantum homeopathic flapdoodle"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had wanted to post something for World Homeopathy Awareness Week (WHAW), which ended a few days ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, I have been hampered by the fact that, whenever I think about writing anything more<\/strong><\/em> about homeopathy, I tend to find myself losing conciousness. Or the will to live.<\/p>\n

This partly reflects just how many words \u2013 undoubtedly running into tens of thousands \u2013 I have expended on homeopathy in other places \u2013 right back to around four years ago when I started commenting on Ben Goldacre\u2019s Bad Science<\/em> blog.<\/p>\n

And, of course, my fellow-bloggers Stephen Curry<\/a> and Richard Grant<\/a> have already signposted WHAW here at NN.<\/em> Not to mention Kausik Datta, who is partway through a multi-post broadside.<\/a><\/p>\n

But I would still like to do my little bit to mark the occasion.<\/p>\n

And also \u2013 the comments on Stephen\u2019s blogpost<\/a> reminded me that there always remain hard-core enthusiasts for Alternative Medicine<\/span> Realities, people whom nothing could ever \u201cun-convince\u201d<\/span>.<\/p>\n

And, of course, there also remain people in science who can always use a small reminder of just how far from their world a fair number of the Alternative Medicine<\/span> Reality people are.<\/p>\n

So I thought I would give you a small literature comprehension exercise.\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014-<\/p>\n

Unreality Detection 101<\/strong><\/p>\n

You are provided with the URLs of two freely accessible online papers concerning quantum mechanical descriptions of homeopathy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Paper A<\/strong> \u2013 Is a Unified Theory of Homeopathy and Conventional Medicine Possible?<\/a><\/p>\n

Paper B<\/strong> \u2013 Towards a Quantum Mechanical Interpretation of Homeopathy<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the two is a spoof.<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of them is not.<\/strong><\/p>\n

After reading briefly through as much of the papers as you find necessary, answer the following questions:<\/em><\/p>\n

1. A scientist or scientists with a PhD wrote
\nA \u00a0 paper A
\nB \u00a0 paper B
\nC \u00a0 both paper A and paper B<\/p>\n

2. The spoof paper
\nA \u00a0 depends which universe you are in<\/a>
\nB \u00a0 is paper A
\nC \u00a0 is paper B<\/p>\n

3. The likelihood that a homeopath can tell which paper is the spoof is
\nA \u00a0 high
\nB \u00a0 low
\nC \u00a0 homeopathically dilute<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

In case you were wondering, question three is set because homeopaths posting pro-homeopathy links on Twitter have linked approvingly to both<\/em><\/strong> of the above papers as:<\/p>\n

\u201cEvidence that homeopathy works by quantum mechanics\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Following which, any comment seems superfluous.<\/p>\n

Though here\u2019s one. Finally, whenever I think about homeopathy, the following line always floats back into my mind:<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly two things are infinite\u2026..<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026the universe and human folly.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m not sure about the universe.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

(Attributed to Albert Einstein)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had wanted to post something for World Homeopathy Awareness Week (WHAW), which ended a few days ago. However, I have been hampered by the fact that, whenever I think about writing anything more about homeopathy, I tend to find … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11,21,5],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-annoyances","category-humour","category-medicine","category-pseudoscience","tag-homeopathy-alternative-reality-alternative-medicine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/notranting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}