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Subnuclear Particles May Move Faster Than Light. Who Says Homeopathy Can’t Work?

September 23, 2011 by admin in Science with 77 Comments

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Atoms, by On1x of Deviant, Homeopathic Remedies Superiposed

Atoms, by On1x of Deviant (http://deviantart.com), Homeopathic Remedies Superiposed

Italy’s Gran Sasso National Laboratory ran a three-year experiment that timed 16,000 neutrinos as they made a 730-kilometer, 2.43-millisecond, trip—and found that they make the trip a bit too fast—60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light. It is, of course, contrary to Einstein’s basic relativity law stating that nothing can move faster than the speed of light.

Perhaps we should now call the speed of light a suggestion?

This is, of course, fascinating. But what does it say about the basic assumptions of those who cite impossibility as the reason that homeopathy cannot work? Clearly, the nature of reality is not perfectly known—and equally clearly, the presumption that homeopathy doesn’t work because it can’t work is a deluded self-referent argument.

That argument is also utterly counter to the true spirit of science. Its purpose is to learn more about the world and universe we inhabit, not to make the arbitrary decision that we know it all, not even the basic facts. We do not. We must trust our senses. When what we see or experience doesn’t match what we expect, then the proper response is not to find excuses for why our impression was wrong. The proper response is to investigate, to find the truth.

The Arguments Against Homeopathy

After stating that homeopathy doesn’t work because it can’t, the rest of the arguments fall into line. They simply state, ad nauseam, that it has never been proven to work, that research that does show it works never happened or was deeply flawed, that research has shown that it doesn’t work, that its effects can be explained as placebo, that it hasn’t been through the rigors of double blind placebo controlled studies, that it can’t work because there is no active ingredient, and finally, that it can’t work because homeopaths cannot explain how it works.

That last is particularly laughable. It’s like suggesting that a rock couldn’t be thrown until someone could explain why it flew through the air instead of dropping straight to earth or flying upward or just hanging there. Knowing how something works is not, and never has been, a prerequisite to something working.

The self-styled sceptics completely ignore that homeopathists often cure what conventional medicine cannot—or worse, actually caused.

  • They ignore the satisfaction of patients. (For some bizarre reason, they believe people who benefit from homeopathy cannot be trusted.)
  • They ignore study upon study that has shown benefit.
  • They ignore studies that show homeopathic remedies have in vitro effects.
  • They ignore the farmers who have abandoned conventional medicine to treat their animals because homeopathy works far better.
  • They continue to ignore the fact that homeopathy does not claim to work on the same basis as pharmaceutical drugs, so that it’s absurd to try to force it into the same mold for testing.

Then there’s the obvious matter that the physics these sceptics rely on are Newtonian. I’m not going to state that Newton was found to be wrong. He wasn’t. Within the right framework, they work beautifully. But they don’t tell the whole story. Einstein’s relational physics took it a step beyond, and now subatomic, or quantum, physics has gone even further than Einstein. Yet, the sceptics, the ones who want to state that homeopathy can’t work because it breaks the laws of physics, don’t seem to care that it’s only the limited laws of Newtonian physics that are broken, not of quantum physics.

But then, what can you expect from people whose reasoning begins and ends with the absurd self-referring statement,  ”It can’t work so it doesn’t”? It’s a statement from dogma, not from reason. It’s equivalent to the church saying that the earth is the center of the universe because it must be the center of the universe.

Just as the results from Gran Sasso must be taken seriously and investigated, so must homeopathy. The evidence that it works exists, and denial does not refute its existence.

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  • CasualObserver

    Thanks for this – it’s one of the funniest things I’ve read all day. Science moving forward in one field cited as a reason why science can be completely disregarded in another.

  • http://blog.anarchic-teapot.net anarchic teapot

    Actually, the reasoning is a damn sight more subtle: if you say it works, then you must prove it. Just as Einstein’s theory had to be proved, just as these new findings must be rigorously tested (if the results can’t be reproduced, they’re not good enough). In the meantime, lasers still work, the calculations still add up. As do Newton’s, incidentally.

    So, when are you going to prove homeopathy works? Physicists, biologists and chemists the world round are agog, as this would also prove that everything we currently think we know is wrong.

  • DB

    Terrible and embarrassing article.

    Beyond cliched actually.

  • Martin

    @CasualObserver: brilliant! perfect summary of this hilarious “article”. No further comments needed :)

  • Albertina einstein

    Missing the point completely. CERN have results that break a scientific law so have opened up the data and requested other scientist recreate the experiment to prove the findings. Homeopathy believers tell you their findings are right and woe betide all the actual scientific experiments which don’t get the same results – they are either wrong or biased!

    • GaiaHealth

      No, the point has not been missed. You miss it completely with your accusations and assumptions that there is no research in support of homeopathy.

  • http://www.skepticcanary.com Tom Williamson

    We skeptics wondered how long it would take a homeopath to use the neutrino result to support homeopathy!

    Basic difference is that the scientists there are reporting a result. Homeopaths have never demonstrated that homeopathy is anything more than a placebo. You can’t explain how something works without showing that it works in the first place.

  • Knead to Know

    In related news, homeopathy’s credibility goes from zero to less-than-zero as a result of this blog post :)

  • http://rant.distant-angel.co.uk/ Rant In A-Minor

    Knead to Know: By their own principles that now means that homeopathy has infinite credibility!
    I hate to repeat myself (I feel like I’ve said this a thousands times, but homeopathy still persists so repeat it I must), but this utter nonsense can be put to bed using only a bottle of orange squash, a glass, some water, and a child – just tell the child to keep adding water to make it more orangey, and wait for them to tell you you’re a moron. End of.
    Now then, can we get back to proper science? :)

  • NFlash

    I find it downright offensive that you think homeopathy is in any way comparable to relativistic physics.

    You aren’t gaining homeopathy ground by saying “Oooh, they might have to rethink that bit of science, so they should reconsider ALL science!”.

    If they decide to adjust traffic speed laws, that doesn’t somehow mean they should adjust the laws on homicide.

    Please, please, PLEASE do not carry on with this “argument”, because if you care about the reputation of homeopathy, you’ll stop embarassing it, and yourself, and let it die. Let it be left to history like trephinning, just another misconception society grew out of.

    • GaiaHealth

      You might try reading the article before commenting. The point had nothing to do with a comparison between homeopathy and physics of any sort. It had everything to do with whether all things are known, because until they are, it’s not legitimate to say that something cannot be because…well, because it cannot be. That’s the point. And you haven’t addressed it.

  • Kerryn

    Absolutely fantastic, well done. Please carry on arguing for homeopathy as strongly as you can.

    Funniest thing I’ve read all week.

  • Stephen Parkes

    Ha ha ha ha, amazing.

  • http://rant.distant-angel.co.uk/ Rant In A-Minor

    Okay, in all seriousness:

    – They ignore the satisfaction of patients. (For some bizarre reason, they believe people who benefit from homeopathy cannot be trusted.)

    No, personal anecdotes are ignored per se because they’re unreliable and prone to bias.

    – They ignore study upon study that has shown benefit.
    No, all studies are considered as long as they’re independent, peer-reviewed, are backed by statistically significant results and, most importantly, not flawed to hell.

    – They ignore studies that show homeopathic remedies have in vitro effects.

    You mean the test tube gets better?

    – They ignore the farmers who have abandoned conventional medicine to treat their animals because homeopathy works far better.

    Just because they believe it works better, doesn’t mean it does. In all probability, we’re dealing with cases of confusing correlation with causation. They give the medicine, the animal gets better, and they assume that A caused B just because B followed A.

    – They continue to ignore the fact that homeopathy does not claim to work on the same basis as pharmaceutical drugs, so that it’s absurd to try to force it into the same mold for testing.

    No, we ignore the fact that homeopathy claims to work on a basis that utterly upturns every known physical and chemical principle thus far discovered by science, without so much as scrap of evidence to back up this ludicrous assertion. If the first step in proving your claim is, “throw out everything everyone has ever proven about this subject”, your claim is almost certainly cobblers.

    • Jonathan Lawrence

      You are really insecure if you hold onto your beliefs that ‘every physical and chemical principle will be overturned…’ That kind of conservative thinking undermines progress.

  • Interested Bystander

    Hah! Hah! Hah! It’s even funnier the 3rd time round. This should be put up in pharmacies to show how stupid the practitioners of homeopathy really, are and the logic that they have to suspend to shoe-horn their beliefs in.

  • Rudolph Rocker

    Ahhh…the skeptics have posted their cynical, droll and smarmy “…we know better than you, because we are skeptics…” rebuffs…and yet have provided not one scintilla of fact, just their own bloated egoism.

    “The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. … We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive. (Albert Einstein, 1954)

    “I think, therefore I am” is pure BS.

    • http://blog.anarchic-teapot.net anarchic teapot

      yet have provided not one scintilla of fact, just their own bloated egoism.

      I think you’re being harsh on some of your fellow homeopathy ,advocates, who may well merely be deluded, but you are quite right that they have failed to provide any facts or verifiable evidence.

    • Jo Payne

      “Ahhh…the skeptics have posted their cynical, droll and smarmy “…we know better than you, because we are skeptics…” rebuffs…and yet have provided not one scintilla of fact, just their own bloated egoism”

      Hahahaha – the skeptics aren’t the ones that have to disprove anything here – the onus is squarely upon the proponents of homeopathy to prove it works . . . we’re still waiting.

    • http://profiles.google.com/drg4023 Drew Gehringer

      Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

      Homeopaths are the ones making claims that contradict all of known physics, chemistry, and biology. The burden of proof is on them.

      If you can repeatedly show in easily-reproducible expieriment that homeopathy works, and how it works, skeptics and scientists will be more then happy to sing its praises (once they’ve gotten their jaws off the floor at the fact that everything we know about much of the world is wrong, and water has memory that somehow remembers the tiny bit of duck liver that was put in it, but doesn’t remember, say, the countless times it’s had sewage in it.)

      As for evidence it doesn’t work; there are countless studies out there, easily findable through a google search.

      To start you off, here’s one from the Medical Journal of Australia:

      http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/192_08_190410/ern11179_fm.html

  • Really!?

    What a lot of cobblers! I’ve lost count of the times that I have seen homeopaths asked, quite reasonably, to provide evidence to back their claims. Time and again they go against the scientific method and say “it just works”. Now they want to use the practise they actually shun to bolster their claims!? Pathetic. Just Pathetic.

    The only way that homeopathy “works” is to fill the bank accounts of the practitioners at the expense (and risk) of those with genuine medical need.

    • Jonathan Lawrence

      Er… there is evidence. Saying there isn’t repeatedly does not make it true. I suggest you get your facts right.

      • Donald

        I’m afraid there is no independantly verifiable evidence that homepathy offers anything beyond the placebo effect. Sorry

        • GaiaHealth
          • Donald

            Righty, so all this shows is that homeopaths are starting to wonder how long they can get away with anecdotal reports being presented as scientific evidence for efficacy and have decided to do some real studies. Fantastic. Unfortunately real studies are based around statistics. p values and confidence intervals allow us to compare efficacy of proposed therapies. Without these we have a slightly more sciencey anecdotal report. Please point me to the published stats on this paper as I cant find any. Why is the control agent causing cell death? etc etc etc. In medicine we are not allowed to get away with this sort of BS.

            Donald –

            Apparently, you just want to rant. That study was done by scientists, not by homeopaths. It was done at the MD Anderson Cancer Center and reported in the International Journal of Oncology. It’s cited at the bottom of the article. Apparently, you didn’t bother to look – or even note that the article is a report of the study, not the study itself. You might also note that this is the same sort of study that was used to document Taxol, and was cited all over the universe. The results were similar. If this study wasn’t acceptable, then neither was the Taxol one that was used to justify human trials.

            – Heidi

          • http://blog.anarchic-teapot.net anarchic teapot

            You linked to your own blog post, not the study itself. Was that a mistake, or are you deliberately trying to avoid closer scrutiny of what you claim as evidence?

  • http://xtaldave.wordpress.com xtaldave

    This has got to be a spoof, right?

  • http://www.nightingale-collaboration.org Alan Henness

    A towering inferno of utter stupidity!

  • http://blog.anarchic-teapot.net anarchic teapot

    Knowing how something works is not, and never has been, a prerequisite to something working.

    Absolutely true. However, if something doesn’t work e.g.homeopathy, no amount of “explanation” will make it otherwise.

    By the way

    I’m not going to state that Newtonian was found to be wrong. He wasn’t.

    Who was Newtonian?

    • GaiaHealth

      Though your intent was clearly sarcasm, thank you for pointing out that little slip. It’s corrected now.

      As with so many others, you ignore the studies that show homeopathy does work. Your implication that the studies exist – including in vitro with automated analyses, where no amount of placebo can possibly be involved – is simply false. Here’s an example: Study Shows Homeopathic Remedies Kill Cancer Cells Without Harming Healthy Cells

      • http://www.nightingale-collaboration.org Alan Henness

        No. That study did not show that a homeopathic product killed (in vitro) cancer cells! That conclusion is not supported by the data.

        If you’re really interested, you can see it being utterly debunked here.

        To quote the author of the demolition (a cell biologist):

        Man, how the hell did this embarrassment get accepted [for publication]?

        • GaiaHealth

          Your debunker may be a cell biologist, but he doesn’t know a thing about such studies. This was an in vitro study, not a human trial. A P-value is not meaningful in a study of cell lines in a lab. The point is made here: http://ecvam.jrc.it/publication/Hothorn.pdf

          Your cell biologist didn’t know what he was talking about. His first attack on the paper was all about the lack of p-values – something that isn’t normally used in such studies, as it’s meaningless there. He doesn’t attack the lack of p-values in other such studies – including the equivalent one done on paclitaxel (Taxol) that was used as the basis of human testing.

          Sorry, but I can’t be bothered reading past that sort of misunderstanding by someone posing as an authority who clearly isn’t.

          • http://blog.anarchic-teapot.net anarchic teapot

            From Wikipedia:

            In statistical significance testing, the p-value is the probability of obtaining a test statistic at least as extreme as the one that was actually observed, assuming that the null hypothesis is true. One often “rejects the null hypothesis” when the p-value is less than the significance level α (Greek alpha), which is often 0.05 or 0.01. When the null hypothesis is rejected, the result is said to be statistically significant.

            In other words, the p-value is ALWAYS relevant.

            Sorry, but I can’t be bothered reading past that sort of misunderstanding by someone posing as an authority who clearly isn’t.

            Fish. Barrel. BANG!

            From Gaia Health:

            Quoting a definiton from Wikipedia has nothing to do with whether a p-value makes sense in every situation. Your claim that it does is meaningless.

  • PabloHoney

    I’m still laughing.

    This has to be the biggest and most embarrassing homeopathetic misunderstanding ever. Did the author never think to themself ” this is complicated and I don’t understand it, better not expose my ignorance then”

  • Stephen Parkes

    I’m going to make an effort to follow this blog. See what else it claims to support the idea of homeopathy in the future. Should be good.

  • Jonathan Lawrence

    Actually science may have the answers as to how complementary medicine and homeopathy works. Just not molecular biological medicine at this time. Look at other sciences, ecology, systems biology and quantum physics. I suspect some of the answers are there.

    In the meantime conventional medical biology doesn’t have a clue how the human body works as a coherent whole or how the brain works and cannot even define consciousness!

    • Jonathan Lawrence

      In fact modern medicine creates disease as Ilich said in the 1970s and all the statistics since have reinforced.

      • http://blog.anarchic-teapot.net anarchic teapot

        Um… I date from before 1970 and I can assure you we had plenty of very nasty diseases. Many of which are now on their way to eradication, or would be if unscientific scaremongering didn’t hinder the efforts of hardworking, dedicated teams who actually know what they’re doing.

        • Jonathan Lawrence

          Iatrogenic disease is either the first biggest killer in the US or third depending on which statistics you read. Cancer diabetes autism, parkinsons, the list goes one. educate yourself.

          • http://blog.anarchic-teapot.net anarchic teapot

            What evidence do you have that these illnesses – all of which have existed for many years, even if some were only recently described – were ALL caused by medication, as you claim?

          • http://www.nightingale-collaboration.org Alan Henness

            Jonathon

            So we can make a proper and useful comparison, do you have data on the number of lives saved, deaths prevented, lives lengthened and suffering relieved by conventional medicine?

      • http://twitter.com/SceptiGuy Guy Chapman

        Sure, that’s why human lifespans have almost doubled since science-based medicine started. Oh, wait…

        • Anonymous

          That’s nonsense. So-called science based-medicine is quite new, far more recent than the increase in lifespans. Lifespan has increased because of adequate food, clean water, and sewage systems. Modern medicine merely claims credit for their benefits.

          • Daniel Layton

            Actually both things have played a role. Even wealthy families with adequate food, clean water, and sewage systems would lose a lot of children from TB, small pox, and now-commonly-cured diseases only 100 years ago.

  • laura coramai

    A well done piece to show that times move forward or advance…sort of like with the fundamentalists and evolution – arguing still that we did not descend from the apes is just so backwards and not taking into account evidence. BTW, totally thk patient testimonals are valid even if direct causality not in evidence as by sheer volumn of usage (thousands daily and for 200 yrs) alone attests to benefits – things that don’t work usually get discarded by the wayside unless there is concerted effort to keep people ignorant and scared of trying alternatives (eg of this would be Cancer Industry and Pharmaceutical companies working to keep the public out of the loop on complementary or alternative treatments to keep profits in their pockets). Thank for this enlightening article – sad the comments seem so scared to give homeopathy a chance. If the skeptics were patients or practitioners themselves maybe some credence to what they say, but have not met one that has actually tried proper homeopathic treatment for a health complaint themselves.

    • James

      You don’t actually say anything!

      And I think you completely misunderstand ‘science’ – the world’s ears and eyes are open to new evidence. But it is EVIDENCE that homeopathy needs to demonstrate, recreate and quantify before science will give it the credibility you assume it should have.

      If your entire industry acted with the open-mind and humbleness Cern has in regard to the neutrino evidence, I’d expect homeopathy would receive a very different reception.

      • laura coramai

        The thing is there is a supportive reception for homeopathy by the individuals who use it worldwide. It is affordable and accessible to those that want to try it and it really works wholistically and addresses serious helath concerns and also is great for common illnesses of children as well as pets and for first aid acutes. Science is like anything – how you frame the question of inquiry really is what determines your results – so, if you want to prove that somethg doesn;t work it’s easy…just set up your “experiment” to illustrate your point. It would be great if the millions of success stories were quantifiable according to conventional medical and scientific research…they are but the funding is often lacking for bigger studies as there is no backing as there is with pharmacuetical funded research, which is – so scary – what goes on in our educational, gov’t and hospital research settings. Crazy world we live in when the common person’s experience is not validated but shot down…will be a better world when there is harmony and peace and no need to act threatened by things you can’t see and explain in a materialist way. Do try homeopathy or ask those that have seen results and been cured of conditions that were really a hinderance to living life fully – it is a beautiful gift to live with one’s full health. Peace.

        • http://blog.anarchic-teapot.net anarchic teapot

          Affordable? Oscillococcinum costs $10 to $17 for 6 doses, i.e. 6 grams of sugar (see Boiron’s official site for proof: each 1 g pill contains 1 g sugar).

          As for proving it doesn’t work, that’s been done many times. It doesn’t work in theory, it doesn’t work in practice. You’re being ripped off by cynical sugar and water peddlers. End of story.

  • Donald

    Heidi,
    ranting has nothing to do with it. I did read the article, you notice I asked to be pointed to the statistical data published, not the article…
    Also, if you note my original statement I was pointing out that there is no evidence for anything beyond the placebo effect in homeopathy. You offer this study as evidence. All I’m saying is that in medicine a poorly executed study in a test tube with no published data that can be peer reviewed is hardly evidence for clinical benefit, on so many levels.

  • James

    I think this argument might prove slightly counter-productive for you. My only concern is the number of people that will have read this nodding away without a single regard for the actual fact of the matter.

  • Tarang

    Well there you go…so much ignorance crawling out of the woodwork…and I bet not one of them has ever used Homeopathy…their loss is all I can say…leave them to it!!

    • http://www.nightingale-collaboration.org Alan Henness

      You’ve just lost your bet. I’ve taken homeopathy. It had no effect. What does that prove? Nothing.

      • http://blog.anarchic-teapot.net anarchic teapot

        I used it for the placebo effect on a toddler with a transient and purely psychosomatic sleeping problem. Mumbo jumbo and bedtime stories work beautifully only when someone’s not really ill.

  • phayes

    Incredible ignorance and illogic. Such a nice irony that we can relatively easily accommodate a superluminal neutrino in the framework of modern physics. But homeopathy? Even a Newtonian would choke on that ‘idea’. :)

    • http://blog.anarchic-teapot.net anarchic teapot

      Well, it does help that the possible existence of neutrinos travelling faster than light hasn’t caused the universe as we know to stop existing. Homeopathy being “science” would.

  • Nalliah Thayabharan

    In 1932 Nikola Tesla reported that neutrons are small particles, each carrying so small a charge and they travel with great velocity, exceeding that of light.
    Experimental tests of Bell inequality have shown that microscopic causality must be violated, so there must be faster than light travel. According to Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, nothing with nonzero rest mass can go faster than light. But zero rest mass particles can go faster than the light. Neutrinos have a small nonzero rest mass. Faster than light interactions are a necessity and they provide the non local structure of the universe. We should understand the relation between local and nonlocal events like the dynamics of universal structure. In any physical theory, it is assumed that there is some kind of nonlocal structure violates causality. If neutrinos are traveling faster than light, then neutrinos must be on the otherside of the light barrier going backwards in time, where the future can interact with the past.
    There are lots of theories and research regarding this matter including Cherenkov radiation, Standard Model Extension, Heim theory, Novikov selfconsistency principle, Casimir effect, Hartman effect, Casimir vacuum & quantum tunnelling, Tachyons, etc.

    – Nalliah Thayabharan

    • http://blog.anarchic-teapot.net anarchic teapot

      Neutrons neutrinos. No charge. Presumably you mean neutrinos. Still no charge, predicted by Pauli in 1931.

      Rather than spouting stuff obviously gleaned from search engines, have some fun with this http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/ParticleAndNuclear/tachyons.html (not a mathematician, but looks like it can be argued over)

      • GaiaHealth

        The attempt to make fun is pathetic. The only one who mentioned neutrons is you. And picking at a nit that has no impact on the argument being made is a cheap trick.

        Your sarcasm is not backed by anything of meaning.

    • http://www.facebook.com/david.kommar.jakobsen David Jakobsen

      To those seekers of truth, who claim that homeopathic medicine treatments aren’t proven to work: It is a scientific fact that the bumblebee cannot fly. Surprisingly, the bumblebee doesn’t know this, and insists on flying nonetheless. Likewise, dilluting traces of base elements into distilled water in order to quench various biological imbalances, will actually work if the healer has discerned the right type of imbalance in the patience’s body. Some day an enlightened scientist with the exams and credentials necessary to convince the sceptics will, encouraged by a failure of support chain from the medicopoison industry, proove that i am right.

      • Daniel Layton

        This shows a clear lack of understanding of what science is. If you can simply observe a bumblebee flying, then you scientifically “prove” that it flies. What you’re alluding to is that our understanding of mechanics at one point could not describe how bumblebees flew (which is not the case anymore), which is totally different. We can observe and describe why homeopathy doesn’t work. When you observe patients taking homeopathic remedies, they do no better than those given placebos. This can be described by the fact that homepathic remedies are identical to water, which is not known to be much of a remedy, unless you’re dehydrated.

        • Anonymous

          You make the claim that homeopathic patients don’t do any better than when on placebo – but that simply is not true.

  • http://twitter.com/SceptiGuy Guy Chapman

    Hurrah! A perfect storm: quantum bullshit, Tesla kooks and “woo” mysticism all rolled into one.

    Here’s a simple fact for you: if homeopathy worked, the experiment that you allude to above would not have been possible.

    • Anonymous

      If you’d actually read the article, you’d know that the article does not attempt to equate quantum physics with homeopathy, but to point out that knowledge of how the world works is not all-knowing – certainly not in a position to know the nature of reality so well that it can claim make the claim that homeopathy doesn’t work because it can’t work.

      The statement that homeopathy’s working or not could possibly have anything to do with the ability to do an experiment on the speed of neutrinos is ludicrous.

      • Daniel Layton

        Science works on falsification. You can never prove that something is true, only that it is untrue. It has been commonly claimed that the speed of light cannot be exceeded, and this was because it has never been observed. Now there is some preliminary evidence to suggest that might not be the case. However, in science data like this will be scrutinized for years before it is accepted. That is to say a body of research has to confirm these finding. There is a body of research around homeopathy, and the conclusion has been that it does not work better than placebo. Compared with observing the almost unfathomable speeds at which neutrinos travel, observing the way patients respond various treatments is pretty damn easy. While it’s surprising that neutrinos were observed going faster than light, the results are far from confirmed, but given the sophistication of the equipment and knowledge needed to do the experiments, it would be a whole lot less surprising than to find that homeopathy actually worked.

        • Anonymous

          It is not true that the reason it’s claimed the speed of light can’t be exceeded is because it hasn’t been observed. It’s claimed because it contradicts a basic theory of modern physics.

          It is also not true that homeopathy has not been shown to work. It most certainly has, and in several good studies. You are simply going along with the usual rhetorical claim, which is generally based on metastudies that used techniques like arbitrarily throwing out studies that demonstrated efficacy because…well, because the researcher just figured the results were too good to be true. Hardly scientific.

          I will, though, give you credit for addressing what the article says, rather than going on tangents like all the other commenters.

          • http://www.facebook.com/people/Kieran-Jones/263900612 Kieran Jones

            Erm, it most certainly is true that the speed of light is the universal constant in the current model of physics because it has never before been observed not to be – hence “why” it makes up a fundamental theory of modern physics.

            Here’s a good video to describe the experiments conducted:

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXr3O1cxYrc

            Also, homeopathy HAS been scrutinized multiple times through clinical trials and been shown to have no greater benefit to the patient than placebo. Here’s a video of the BBC programme Panorama conducting its own clinical trial into the claims put forward by advocates of Homeopathy.

            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZhmG97lYog

  • http://twitter.com/erlendaakre Erlend Aakre

    Nothing new here.. “Science has a small problem describing X, therefore! UNICORNS!”

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  • http://www.anarchic-teapot.net anarchic teapot

    So, um, now that those CERN results have been found to be due to a faulty WiFi connection, do you still want to claim this proves that homeopathy must be taken seriously?

    • HeidiStevenson

      If you’d actually read the article, you’d realize that it doesn’t claim that there’s any connection between faster-than-light movement & homeopathy. The point is that something that didn’t fit within the context of current physics thinking was taken seriously. It wasn’t treated as, “It can’t work, so it doesn’t.” It was treated as “Oh – we’d best take a look and see if it’s true or not.”

      However, the approach taken by minds so closed that they fear alternate views so much they must suppress them is, “It can’t work, so it doesn’t.” It’s a self-referent attitude – one that requires attempting to demean and defame anyone with a differing view.

      Quite frankly, it’s just plain bizarre that anyone who doesn’t believe homeopathy works has any concern about it at all. If you don’t like it, don’t use it. That there’s such a concerted attack on it, rather than simply ignoring it, tells us the absurdity of so much effort put into the attacks.

  • http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk Guy Chapman

    Science (as usual) self-corrected for error. Homeopathy (as always) won’t.

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