On Sun, 21 Dec 2003 14:12:23 EST, the world broke into rejoicing as David J Patrick <davidjpatrick-rieW9WUcm8FFJ04o6PK0Fg at public.gmane.org> said:

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I think the practice you are slagging is actually "homeopathy". Yes, microdoses sound downright improbable, but I have to say that I have seen it used successfully countless times over the last 30 years. Just because we don't understand something doesn't always mean it's bogus.

"Countless" I am sure.

OK, so I didn't count 'em, how 'bout "many" ?

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The _real_ effect may be that patients that drink a bunch of water do better than those that are allowed to remain dehydrated.

What we know is that the reasons for efficacity claimed by homeopaths are at odds with any notion of common sense, particularly at the high dilution levels. After a "100C"-like dilution, there are only a few reasonable choices:

- The water being added in contains some unidentified-by-practitioner medicative agent;

- Dehydration is the symptom being treated;

- They are engaging in some form of "faith healing" where the 'medicine' is merely the substrate to strengthen the recipient's faith that something is happening to them.

OR the our biology responds to extremely subtle agents beyond our current "scientific" understanding.

That was the opening I left in the first choice, namely that something that is not being identified is being added in the water. The notion that our biology responds to chemicals that are not actually present doesn't fit into what could make sense. -- let name="cbbrowne" and tld="acm.org" in name ^ "@" ^ tld;; http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/nonrdbms.html First Fact About Networks "Pipes can be made wider, but not shorter" -- Mark Miller -- The Toronto Linux Users Group. Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml