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References to more meta-analyses

This article is missing reference to many meta-analyses in highly respected medical journals. In this light, I am recommending the following addition to this article. You will note that I have integrated some critique of some of these meta-analyses. It is strange that this article ignores the impressive and high quality work of Reilly, the Cochrane review of clinical trials on Oscillococcinum in the treatment of the flu, and the 3 studies on childhood diarrhea by Jacobs and team. The first sentence below is taken directly from the article here, though I have added my recommendations for what should be said next. DanaUllman 03:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Claims for efficacy of homeopathic treatment beyond the placebo effect are unsupported by scientific and clinical studies. However, various meta-analysis have found a greater effect from a homeopathic medicine than a placebo and several meta-analyses evaluating the homeopathic treatment of specific diseases has also found positive results.

A review of 67 in vitro studies was conducted, three-fourths of which have been replicated with positive results by independent investigators. The researchers of this review concluded, “Even experiments with a high methodological standard could demonstrate an effect of high potencies.” However, they also acknowledge, “No positive result was stable enough to be reproduced by all investigators.” DanaUllman 03:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:RS, these do not appear to be RS. Jefffire (talk) 08:11, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

For some purposes they would be considered reliable sources, so it is not fair to dismiss Dana's suggestion so lightly. Since there now appear to be dozens of publications calling themselves meta-analyses, we have to ask if these sources are among the best (most reliable) that are available to address a given question. Some of the relevant criteria are the prestige and neutrality of the journal (Lancet is better than Complementary Therapies in Medicine), and the number of trials analyzed (3 trials on childhood diarrhea or 4 on perennial allergic rhinitis arguably are too small to be called meta-analyses). We've been around this circle many times. I would like to see a branch of this talk page that lists all the studies that are proposed for inclusion with the information we need to prioritize them. Eventually, it will turn into a great resource, and we will be able to short-cut a lot of discussions by pointing to that page. Unfortunately, making such a page involves work, so we would need a selfless volunteer to do it. --Art Carlson (talk) 08:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

GTBacchus is planning such a thing. (BTW, Dana, could you add some more line breaks in the right places, or perhaps italics that make it easier to understand the structure of your post?) --Hans Adler (talk) 08:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Most of these analyses say that the evidence found was not good enough to come to definitive conclusions and call for more good quality research, and several are 8 years or more old, so we also need to consider more recent results, such as the attempt by Lewith et al. to repeat Reilly's results, which concluded that while there were some unexplained differences between the groups, "homoeopathic immunotherapy is not effective in the treatment of patients with asthma". In the case of the 2007 analysis of in-vitro studies, as well as saying that the results were not consistently reproduced, the abstract (I haven't seen the actual paper yet) also appears to cast doubt on the quality of the trials: "A general adoption of succussed controls, randomization and blinding would strengthen the evidence of future experiments". This suggests that these were not generally adopted in the studies considered. Brunton (talk) 12:31, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Friends, I referenced these particular meta-analyses and reviews of research because they are known reviews of high quality research. The Cochrane report is but one example. The Reilly research is widely recognized as high quality (Brunton, your summary of the Lewith effort to replicate was good because most people tend to erroneously summarize it as a simply an unsuccessful result, when, in fact, there were differences in effects between the treatment and the control group. Reilly has commented on this trial as NOT being a replication trial due to many differences in the design, its inadequate repetition of the remedy--just 3 doses--over 3 months (!), and more (I don't have the reference to his response at this moment but can provide it if anyone is interested). The Jacobs trials are notable because 2 of the 3 trials were published in major pediatric journals, and although the lead researcher was the same person (Jacobs), she used different homeopaths as prescribers for each trial. As for the review of in-vitro studies, I recognize that the journal in which it was published was not of the same highest caliber as the others, however, this review is available online and seems to be a high quality review (I encourage others to read it). DanaUllman 13:40, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you have a link to somewhere the Witt et al. review is available? I can't find it anywhere that doesn't require a subscription. Brunton (talk) 15:19, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Note: the lead researcher can (and he is actually supposed to) order the prescribers to do stuff on a certain way and not other, and completely bias the research even if accidentally, so that fact is *very* important. We can safely assume all 3 trials have the same bias --Enric Naval (talk) 15:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Are these studies highly regarded by the scientific and medical community? Jefffire (talk) 14:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to point out what I already wrote at Talk:Homeopathy/Selection of studies: I attempted to pull together reliable secondary sources a few months ago: here's the archive of it...nobody responded to my work. Everything I list there is a review or meta-analysis. — Scientizzle 15:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The table consists of individual studies (with all the problems of primary sources, expecially the danger of cherry picking) and doesn't say much if anything about the conclusions. The list is better, but 398 papers is much too much to deal with (as you noticed yourself). If there are really that many "reviews and meta-analyses" out there, then we need a tertiary source to pick out the most important ones for us. Maybe some citation statistics on this list would be a good start? Or a selected list published by a major medical organization? --Art Carlson (talk) 16:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

398 is certainly too much, but the usable number is actually probably a third of that--a lot more papers end up under the "review" tab at pubmed than should. When you skip over nonreviews and obvious crap from altmed journals, the number is much better. Still, though, the utility of reviews is that they're (ideally) comprehensive enough to include reference to and information from prior works. Therefore, we needn't actually sort through every review ever, but can pull from the most recent works from the best quality journals.

Another point: given the nature of the general nonacceptance--and, indeed, active ignoring--of homeopathy by mainstream medicine and the desperate attempts to claim legitimacy by proponents, tertiary sources are likely, in my opinion, to be decidedly less common from the skeptical angle...then again, I've not really looked and maybe I'll be surprised! — Scientizzle 16:41, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Linde '97 has been destroyed by reviewers and is contradicted by later, better work. In vitro assays, frankly, don't mean crap when it comes to clinical efficacy. The reason Homeopathy doesn't have support in the medical literature is all those caveats that even the positive reviews have to place: low reliability, power, and repeatability...and vanishing effects as these increase. — Scientizzle 15:43, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

But a reproducible in vitro result would be more convincing than even an excellent clinical study because there is much less that can go wrong. --Art Carlson (talk) 16:15, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

No way. A reproducible in vitro study is usually the basic requirement to justify even starting a pilot clinical study. The list of excellent in vitro work that fails to translate into viable in vivo mechanisms & treatments is extensive. — Scientizzle 16:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Didn't we already have this discussion on some other talk page? Are you going to just shop around until you find some page that you can put this meta-analysis into, Dana? --Infophile 16:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Wait, what? Can you link that page where Dana presented this same study so we can see the arguments used? Dana is on probation on the homeopathy-related pages and if he has presented the same argument without citing the arguments because the study was rejected on the former discussion or mentioning the rejection then he's clearly breaching it. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Check out Talk:Arsenicum album. The discussion of it is spread out over several sections, but we're definitely talking about the same study. --Infophile 20:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

If it's the 1997 Linde et al. analysis you mean, the study Dana was pushing on the Arsenicum album talk page is not the same one - that one was published in 1994. There was a certain amount of confusion, and mentions of the 1997 paper from other editors, because Dana initially failed to cite the 1994 'Human and Experimental toxicology' paper correctly. Brunton (talk) 21:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

As far as the 1997 Linde paper goes, as mentioned on the other page in the 1999 paper Linde and his co-authors wrote "The evidence of bias weakens the findings of our original meta-analysis. Since we completed our literature search in 1995, a considerable number of new homeopathy trials have been published. The fact that a number of the new high-quality trials have negative results, and a recent update of our review for the most “original” subtype of homeopathy (classical or individualized homeopathy), seem to confirm the finding that more rigorous trials have less-promising results. It seems, therefore, likely that our meta-analysis at least overestimated the effects of homeopathic treatments" (Linde et al. 1999), and in 2005 in a letter published in The Lancet Linde and Jonas wrote, "Our 1997 meta-analysis has unfortunately been misused by homoeopaths as evidence that their therapy is proven". Brunton (talk) 22:14, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I was thinking of the Witt et al. 2007 paper when I made that comment, which he briefly mentioned there. However, it still is quite interesting that he'd come here pushing the 1997 Linde et al. study, given all the arguments presented against it there (despite the fact that he wasn't actively pushing it then). --Infophile 22:18, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

"quite interesing", now that's an interesing wording :) You can comment it at Talk:Homeopathy/Article_probation/Incidents#pushing_articles_on_talk_pages --Enric Naval (talk) 23:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Brunton is correct about the mistakes made by Enric about the Linde meta-analyses. The 1994 meta-analysis focused on 105 studies in environmental toxicology, and we achieved some consensus on it at Arsenicum album. I generally appreciate the work and mind of User:Scientizzle, but I think he is erring here. The point of doing homeopathic in-vitro studies is first and foremost to simply show that homeopathic doses have a greater effect than a placebo, and there is now a significant body of replication evidence here to confirm this, though as I also note in my description of the Witt (2007) review, no study has been replicated by ALL workers. User:Scientizzle wrote that Linde's 1997 meta-analysis was "destroyed by reviewers," but I am quite confident (though not certain) that he is not correct here. The review of research that has received the most significant criticism has been the 2005 Shang review. As for the Linde 1997 article, the Lancet published an editorial along with the meta-analysis that attacked the results simply because he asserted that all homeopathic research is "a game of chance between two placebos", but he also acknowledged and confirmed that "The meta-analysis is completely state of the art." Obviously, the writer of this editorial is very antagonistic to homeopathy, and yet, he had the highest compliments for the work of Linde and team. That said, my original writing above includes reference to Linde 1999 article in which I wrote: The authors later analyzed these trials and concluded that higher quality trials were less likely to be positive than those of lower quality, though they acknowledged that this is true of conventional medical research too, saying in the first sentence of the article, “There is increasing evidence that more rigorous trials tend to yield less optimistic results than trials with less precautions against bias.” As for the 2005 reference to Linde saying that homeopaths should not say that his work "proved" homeopathy. No meta-analysis can "prove" all of homeopathy, so Linde's statement is relatively meaningless. In fact, Linde has NOT conducted a newer analysis, and based on his original work and his updated comments, we can and should still say that his work shows that the placebo explanation is inadequate for explaining if and how homeopathic medicines work. As his 1997 work highlighted, the 26 high quality clinical trials still had a 1.66 odds ratio, suggesting that the effect from homeopathic medicines was greater than that of placebo. Ultimately, my writing above sought diligently to maintain RS and NPOV. Please read again in the light of this information. DanaUllman 03:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Some short replies:

1. saying all homeopathic research is "a game of chance between two placebos" is not a compliment to homeopathic research. It's more like... totally the opposite of a compliment
2. if there is a real effect caused by the substance studied, there will arrive a moment when increasing the rigor by a wide margin on the study will not reduce the success rate on results by a measurable margin. That's when you can start thinking that you have eliminated all bias and are actually measuring real effects. That point has not been reached yet by homeopathic research, and that's what makes it different from modern medicine
3. don't label my posts as misinformation , specially when my "misinformation" consisted of verifiable facts that were confirmed by other editors at Talk:Homeopathy/Article probation/Incidents‎. The fact that you place an incivil statement on the edit summary does not make it less uncivil, and you have been warned before about your edit summaries --Enric Naval (talk) 09:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

To reply to Dana's post as well...I stand by my statement indicating that Linde '97 has been effectively marginalized.

Regarding the in vitro work--I'm quite aware of the justification for doing it. The fact is that homeopathy was grandfathered into clinical work without any preclinical justification. This is true of many standard medical modalities, naturally, but it's standard practice in evidence-based medicine nowadays that any clinical exploration must have extensive supporting evidence of safety and efficacy in cell line work and animal models before any institutional review board will greenlight even pilot work in humans. Certainly, there are standard medical treatments that were developed long ago that have bypassed much of the preclinical work on account of their longstanding perceived success, but there is a lot of modern research involved in elucidating the relevant mechanisms of these paradigms, in essence backtracking into preclinical work to better facilitate next-gen clinical explorations. However, altmed research (in general, homeopathy included) seems to skate by with a distinct lack of preclinical justification for their clinical work. (I know this has been commented on in several sources that don't currently lie at my fingertips...) The case of trying to induce degranulation of human basophils is pretty clear to me: almost 20 years of work has revealed no consistent effect, providing no support for any in vitro justification of any claimed in vivo effect. — Scientizzle 15:43, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that the body of (weak) scientific studies should be refered and summarized. Studies where other RS have critizised that particular study should still be mentioned, but with the critique mentioned too. A disclaimer should be integrated in this section with general comments about study design, potential sources of error, that most studies give a negative result etc. We (WP-editors) are on a slippery slope towards Original Research if we try to do the job of evaluating a complex body of scientific studies and second guess what peer reviewed journals have published.MaxPont (talk) 06:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Max that there should be SOME balanced mention of these studies and that they should be covered by every viewpoint of their interpretation so the reader can access them and make their own mind up. Even though they present a complex problem, they should at least get some mention somewhere, either in the main article or in that daughter article of studies. Peter morrell 07:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Sure. Balance. Neutrality. But the problem remains, out of thousands of published studies and hundreds of reviews and meta-analyses, how do we pick out the handful that we can discuss in the article? Without doing original research. --Art Carlson (talk) 07:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

That's really outside of our competence. What would be ideal is a bunch of expert m.d's, and even then there would be controversy. We can generally assume that recent reviews in high impact journals are more authoritative though, so I would stick with those. Jefffire (talk) 08:19, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

So it's OR to describe a controversy then is it? What happens in other wiki articles where there is strong controversy, such as Intelligent design and Creationism? Are you saying that those articles are composed entirely of OR and are thus worthless? That seems to be the logical consequence of what you are saying. We should surely be able to say something fairly neutral about a bunch of trials. Or is that too much to expect? Peter morrell 08:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

(EC) I don't think it can be such a big problem. For a start, we needn't build this in article space initially. We already have Talk:Homeopathy/FAQ, and this can serve a similar purpose. We can start with everything we already have. I think what we really need is a dozen or so of the best metastudies that can be read as supporting one side, and a dozen or so for the other. Both sides could do this separately, but I believe the result will be better if they do it together. (Also, I believe I am fairly neutral, and there are quite a few others here who I couldn't categorise as being for or against homeopathy.)

In talk space, original research isn't a problem. What is a problem is getting a consensus among the most active and most vocal editors. Currently it's hard to do anything because there is a range of opinions from "homeopathy has been proved to work and everybody who says otherwise wants to kill patients" to "homeopaths are quacks who want to throw us back into the middle ages". Almost nobody is as extreme as that, but as soon as we do anything substantial, it only takes one extremist to polarise everybody. I see the collection of meta-studies as a project for developing a community sense. Everybody should know what everybody else thinks, and why. Once we have reached that stage there will be hardly any room left for assuming bad faith or irrationality.

I believe the trick for reaching a consensus is to understand that this is not a zero-sum game. There are ways of changing an article so that one side thinks it's a lot better, and the other thinks it's slightly worse. Therefore after two such opposite changes everybody will feel the article is much better. But I don't think doing such changes can be traded. What we need is an understanding of the justified interests of the other side, which are often not completely incompatible with one's own side. Also some generosity plus the willingness to see the generosity of the other side.

I am afraid that wasn't particularly clear, but I'll press "Save page" anyway. --Hans Adler (talk) 08:54, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

OK no isue with all that but I suspect what Jefffire was saying is that even to make a choice of which studies to include involves a bias. And he is right about that. My point simply was that to place something in the article is better than placing nothing. Myriad trials exist as also do their interpreters. It is undoubtedly a minefield, a can of worms, but some mention of all aspects of that should be included in the article. How we make choices and what goes in is then up for discussion. Hopefully, as Hans says, this balance can be achieved through give and take, consensus and mutual respect. Peter morrell 09:03, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Scientizzle stands by his remark about the criticisms for Linde 1997, but he hasn't provided any references to such critique. I previously showed that a strong critic of homeopathy made reference to the Linde meta-analysis as "completely state of the art", and he wrote about this in an editorial in the Lancet (cited above). I even included another quote from this editorial to make it clear that this author is quite antagonistic to homeopathy, and yet, he had VERY kind words to say about Linde's methodology.

As for the way forward...I simply suggest that we do what a good encyclopedia that strives for NPOV should do: We should say that some meta-analyses and reviews of research claim that there is no effects distinct from a placebo (and then give those references), while other meta-analyses and reviews of research claim that there is a distinct effect from that of placebo (and then given these references). Does this make sense? DanaUllman 21:40, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Are you proposing to include all 398 reviews and meta-analyses that Scientizzle dug up? --Art Carlson (talk) 07:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, fine. Vandenbroucke may have thought the meta-analysis "state of the art," but he said the authors were "'leaning over backwards' to show the robustness of their findings". Linde et al were criticized for failing to provide the primary results of the contributing trials. In this critique the author is dubious of the value of the results, urging caution at positive interpretation of the results and stating "a rational basis for choice of homoeopathy, or any particular modality of it, is lacking". This one pointed out that Linde et al incorrectly interpreted and used some studies inappropriately, concluding "all the data in Linde's report should be carefully checked, since his group's prejudice in favour of homoeopathy is obvious". This one criticized Linde's "correction" for publication bias. Trial studies published after Linde et al completed their analyses were negative and Linde et al's results "may well be slightly more positive for homoeopathy than recent published evidence implies." This overview of the study concludes: "there just is not enough information in any one condition with any one homeopathic treatment to say that homeopathy should be used. If this were a new treatment in conventional healthcare, we would look at it with a very cold and fishy eye. Certainly no conventional therapy would be allowed to have so many different conditions and variations bundled together to try to reach a conclusion."

The fact that Linde et al (1997) "found insufficient evidence...that homoeopathy is clearly efficacious for any single clinical condition" is not positive data. And of course, in 2001 Linde backed off even more: "the quality of the trials was highly variable, the majority had important shortcomings in reporting and/or methodology". In 2003, Linde and others wrote that "evidence on the effectiveness of homeopathy for specific clinical conditions is scant, is of uneven quality, and is generally poorer quality than research done in allopathic medicine".

So...I still stand by my statement. — Scientizzle 02:00, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Friends, remember that all scientific theories are falsified all the time. There will always be a few studies with contradictory results and a few phenomena that are unexplained. Just because a few studies show that homeopathy has an effect does not mean that the entire body of established scientific knowledge has to be discarded. The actual practice of science is not strict Popperian. Look at Lakatos for a deeper discussion. The pro science camp can relax. Including a few studies with positive results is not a proof that homeopathy works. I think that the pro-homeo studies can be mentioned and referenced in a narrative with disclaimers. MaxPont (talk) 07:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

user:Scientizzle, first, it is a pleasure having a substantiative dialogue with you, and I hope that others are benefiting in the process. First, your reference to Vandenbroucke who in his editorial in the Lancet acknowledged that the Linde 1997 meta-analysis was "state of the art," but then you wrote: "he said the authors were "'leaning over backwards' to show the robustness of their findings"." HOWEVER, you neglected to mention the second half of this sentence about how they were leaning over: "the authors present an analysis of the best randomized trials with the highest dilutions; again, the effect is confirmed." Heck, I hope that most researchers lean over backwards to review the BEST quality studies! That is not cherry-picking; that is what good researchers and evaluators of research should do! Am I wrong? Also, it is NOTABLE that the statistical significance was for the high homeopathic potencies...and THAT is one of the fundamental issues here. Some of your other references were to "letters to the editor", which in no way should in their totality constitute "destroyed by reviewers". Heck (again), the Lancet was almost required to have letters that were pro and con this meta-analysis. I previously asserted (correctly) that the Linde 1997 meta-analysis was RS and notable, and more, I acknowledged his follow-up points about how more recent studies may have weakened it, but no one to date has conducted the formal re-analysis of the data to date. Further, your reference to the evidence not proving that homeopathic medicines are effective for one specific condition is only partially true and partially false. Linde and team defined "proven" efficacy as having 3 independent researchers testing the same treatment on the same disease. The Linde meta-analysis was in 1997, and in 1998, the 3rd study on Oscillococcinum was published. And in 2003, the 3rd study on childhood diarrhea was published. In other words, at the time of Linde's writing, he was accurate, but based on his team's guidelines, one can now say that homeopathic medicines have been proven efficacious for influenza-syndromes and for childhood diarrhea. DanaUllman 21:50, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

user:ArtCarlson has raised the important issue on which of the almost 400 reviews and meta-analyses should we use...I suggest that we use 3-5 that are the best that show positive effects from homeopathy and the same number that show negative results. That is what a good encyclopedia would do. DanaUllman 21:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Ernst ref #16 added today

Here is the abstract for this item: "Homeopathy is a popular but implausible form of medicine. Contrary to many claims by homeopaths, there is no conclusive evidence that highly dilute homeopathic remedies are different from placebos. The benefits that many patients experience after homeopathic treatment are therefore most probably due to nonspecific treatment effects. Contrary to widespread belief, homeopathy is not entirely devoid of risk. Thus, the proven benefits of highly dilute homeopathic remedies, beyond the beneficial effects of placebos, do not outweigh the potential for harm that this approach can cause."

It expresses an opinion, but does not seem to support the contention that homeopathy is in contradiction of scientific principles. Perhaps someone can check the full article and give here the exact phrase that says this? Also, notably, Ernst is not an RS author as he has expressed such OPINIONS many times before and garners no respect and much derision within alt. med circles not to mention that he also regualrly cites his own articles and those of his co-workers (self-citation rates of over 70% are common in his articles) while his work is rarely cited by anyone else in alt.med outside his circle. I would therefore suggest that this cite be rigorously scrutinised to check if it actually supporits the contention it has been placed to support today. Peter morrell 17:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

For me, that abstract appears to be totally based on facts described on the study. It does not say the exact same sentence as the article, but for me it clearly supports its meaning. I don't know Ernst's work. Also, it seems to be the same study as ref #15 --Enric Naval (talk) 18:14, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The word "implausible" is used once in the abstract and another three times in the text, but I can't find anything like "contradiction", "opposed to", "incompatible with", or anything like "fundamental principles". The closest he comes is to say "Leading German scientists of the time were charged with testing homeopathy at a basic science level in addition to through clinical research." and "If one adds to all this, the scientific implausibility of the basic concepts that underlie homeopathic thinking, the inescapable conclusion is not positive". This is not a good source to support the current wording of the article. Furthermore, as Peter intimates, even if Ernst clearly expressed the opinion that homeopathy is in contradiction to basic principles of science, that would be insufficient reason for us to report it as a fact. I have returned the fact tag. --Art Carlson (talk) 18:36, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Sigh, ok, let's try this. What would you say if this study was used to support that "homeopathy is in agreement with current scientific principles"? --Enric Naval (talk) 19:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I would say that the essay (It is not a study.) does not have anything to say one way or the other about whether homeopathy in contradiction to or agreement with basic scientific principles. --Art Carlson (talk) 20:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

And if it said "homeopathy is in agreement with modern medicine principles"? (And I'm afraid I won't be able to reply to comments for a while, because I don't want to get accussed of entering content disputes while discussing probation incidents, so I'll take a break from editing homeopathic pages) --Enric Naval (talk) 00:25, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't see what you're getting at. --Art Carlson (talk) 07:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

To be precise, the current wording is wrong, that fact people do use water as a remedy isn't in contradiction of any physical principles at all, people can indeed do strange things and just because it is illogical doesn't make the action of using water in this way physically impossible. However, the claim that water has specific medical effects is a claim that contradicts many scientific principles. Tim Vickers (talk) 18:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The NCAHF source rules. I quote: "Homeopathy conflicts more with basic laws of physics, chemistry and pharmacology than with clinical medicine." and several other assertions. --Enric Naval (talk) 20:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

We all need to be careful about avoiding OR. We have to use direct quotes from articles. We also need to be careful about avoid organizations, such as NCAHF, which do not represent a NPOV. If we want to use a statement from them, should we also use a statement from a homeopathic organization? I say "no" to both. DanaUllman 21:45, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

We do not need to use direct quotes. It is adequate to summarize or paraphrase our sources. In fact, using direct quotes is usually discouraged in the lead. ScienceApologist (talk) 22:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry to break it to you, Dana, but NPOV has a known anti-homeopathy bias. Besides, there's no rule that sources can't have a POV, they only need to be reliable. The NCAHF meets the criteria there. --Infophile 22:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

OK. Now we're on the same page. At least the NCAHF source, unlike the Ernst source, is relevant to the statement under discussion. What exactly can we say based on this source? Can we say, "Homeopathy is sometimes regarded as pseudoscience, quackery, and in conflict with basic laws of science."? Absolutely. I don't think you'll have any trouble finding a consensus for such a statement. Can we say, "Most scientists think that homeopathy is in conflict with basic laws of science."? I don't think so. The NCAHF does not claim to be summarizing the opinions of others. If we had three or four independent sources for such a statement, then we could talk about it, but not so long as we have only one source. But the current version of the article goes even farther and says that homeopathy really is in contradiction to basic principles of science. Such a statement requires A-1 quality sources. The NCAHF just throws out the contention without even saying which laws of physics, which laws of chemistry, and which laws of pharmacology are violated. The NCAHF source is insufficient justification for the current version. --Art Carlson (talk) 07:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree, it must say which alleged laws are abrogated and we must have an A1 source. We should have good neutral sources to support such a substantive claim. Peter morrell 08:00, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll see what I can dig up. I remember seeing at least one other source somewhere which expressed a scientist's opinion that this was the case. Alone, it means nothing, but if we can find enough, we could show that this is a common view. --Infophile 15:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Barrett reference ("Ultimate Fake")

According to Google Scholar this article is from 2001 and has something to do with the "National Council Against Health Fraud". It seems that Stephen Barrett's qualification is being a practising psychiatrist. Apart from the online version on quackwatch.org there is also a PDF version hosted on an academic personal homepage. Is this really a reliable source? I was under the impression that we had higher standards for the homeopathy article. For comparison: How about the articles available from ? Is it OK to cite them? --Hans Adler (talk) 20:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/Talk:Homeopathy/Archive_29#Quackwatch <-- Here is an archived discussion about using Quackwatch as a source. QuackGuru (talk) 20:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Peter is not an MD, Stephen Barrett is. Peter has not received commendation from recognized authorities in the medical field. Stephen has. Peter is decidedly fringe. Stephen is not. Need we go on? ScienceApologist (talk) 22:10, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

My comment looks stupid now, but it wasn't when I made it. Currently this article is used as a reference in two places: The first is about what "critics contend". The second is a paragraph containing a literal quotation from Park, apparently taken from the article. I agree that so long as we have no reason to suppose the Park quotation (which doesn't seem to be contentious) is incorrect, the article is a reliable source for both passages.

I made the above comment when the article looked like this. There were two instances of this reference, one as #112 (used for the two passages described above) and one as #16. I was objecting to the use of this article as reference #16 for the following statement:

For example, the common use of remedies that are so highly diluted that they contain no molecules of the substance being diluted is in contradiction to basic principles of natural science, chemistry, and modern medicine.

This sentence is contentious because it can be understood to claim it's inconceivable that in the future we will have an understanding of science consistent with efficacy of highly diluted doses. This is much stronger than saying "based on our current understanding of science it can't work" (which is obviously true). It is in no way surprising to me that such a sweeping, unscientific claim cannot be sourced to a peer-reviewed journal. Also most good scientists care too much for their reputation to make such claims. As far as I am concerned, the very presence of this sentence is part of a compromise. It makes our article look unprofessional, because it is a statement of opinion thinly veiled as science.

Part of the compromise is that the statement has been toned down from "fundamental principles" to "basic principles", which I consider much more inclusive. E.g. Newtons's laws and Maxwell's equations are basic principles but not fundamental principles. An example for a fundamental principle would be the principle that aspects of nature can be described in terms of mathematical models, or something like that. Someone would have to be at least as much a philosopher and a historian of science to meaningfully investigate the question whether an idea contradicts the fundamental principles of science.

But even with "fundamental principles" it's a relatively strong statement, and sourcing it to a psychiatrist, i.e. someone who presumably is not an expert on any of the special areas involved, is not adequate. The statement is now sourced to an NCAHF position paper. I can't say exactly why, but I feel it's slightly better that way, although that paper is clearly not even trying to use scientifically accurate language in this respect. Using it here seems to be a bit similar to citing the New York Times with a statement about cold fusion that we can't find in the scientific literature. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:25, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

It is in no way surprising to me that such a sweeping, unscientific claim cannot be sourced to a peer-reviewed journal. -- Hmm. This is akin to saying that intelligent design isn't criticized by any mainstream peer-reviewed papers. While in point of fact true, it misses the issue. Pseudoscience like homeopathy, intelligent design, UFOlogy, etc. doesn't get criticized in peer-reviewed journals because that's not what peer-reviewed journals are for. To illustrate the outright inadequacies of these pseudosciences, we need only reference sources that match the claims. In this case, since the homeopathic claim that diluting a remedy to the point where it is pure water is an effective means of increasing potency are not ever mentioned in peer-reviewed sources, the criticisms do not need to be made in peer reviewed sources. ScienceApologist (talk) 13:35, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Do you consider this source, by itself, strong enough to support the statement that homeopathy is "in contradiction to basic principles of natural science, chemistry, and modern medicine", as opposed to a statement that some/many/most scientists consider it to be so? Which basic principles would you say this source sees as violated? --Art Carlson (talk) 15:59, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

As an extremely partisan, non-peer reviewed website, Quackwatch (and its kin sites such as Homeowatch, etc.) should only be used to express the opinions of its authors and not be used to make broad statements about the general scientific community. -- Levine2112 20:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I have full access to Park, Robert L. Voodoo Science: The Road from Foolishness to Fraud. Oxford University Press (2000). Since it is published by a highly respected university press, it may be more generally considered reliable and less contentious than QuackWatch. If people would like information from that source, please let me know and I will provide some quotations, as I did for the source below. Cheers! Vassyana (talk) 16:49, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Interesting bits

Some interesting bits. I'll leave it to the editors here to incorporate them, or not.

From: Whorton , James C. Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America. Pg 49. Oxford University Press (2004).

Same source, page 272:

Pages 272-73:

Page 273:

Just an interesting source I came across. Vassyana (talk) 20:29, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Notes & references

See also - Talk:Homeopathy/Selection of studies

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