Talk:Homeopathy/Archive 38

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Quote box

from Greek ὅμοιος ("like") + πάθος ("suffering")

(OED)

Is it just me, or is the pull-quote box (copied to the right) one of the least elegant and worst ways to handle entymology? Explanations of the entymology, translations, and the like are almost universaly handled inline within the lead, I see no reason to make this article an exception. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:18, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

I think it depends on the article. Some etymologies (especially the Asian stuff) take up most of the first line and really break up the reading process. They are thus distractions and the box works well. If it's only a single word or two, then an inline solution probably is good enough. Just deal with it on a case by case basis. -- Fyslee (talk) 19:38, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Maybe it should start with the word Homeopathy, just to make it look nicer? Verbal chat 22:13, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I like having an etymologybox (obviously), but looking back now we do not state the alternate spellings of homeopathy - should those go there or as a parenthetical after the first word? - Eldereft (cont.) 22:31, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Good point. We should definitely mention alternate spellings, and those alternate spellings should also be used as redirects to this article (they probably are already). -- Fyslee (talk) 23:47, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Not to be a dick, but what we are discussing is etymology, not entomology. Bit of a difference. I agree that boxes, in general, should be avoided. As should vicious insects. Skinwalker (talk) 01:52, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Oops! Fixed my typo. That was a Freudian slip after seeing SH's. Now I'll let SH fix his. -- Fyslee (talk) 02:38, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Alternate spellings and suchlike should go in the box too, not in the main text (where they would detract from the lead sentence). While we're on the subject, the current etymology is too brief, and needs expanding; it doesn't transliterate the Greek into Latin letters, and this runs afoul of Wikipedia style gudelines. Eubulides (talk) 08:48, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Contradiction in History section

There is a seeming contradiction in the History section, Rise to popularity and early criticism subsection. In it the article claims there was relative success of homeopathy in the 18th century. However, if homeopathy was not even coined until 1807 and was not practiced until after Hahnemann concieved of it in the very end of the 18th century as described in the subsection Hahnemann's concept, how could homeopathy have enjoyed any success in the 18th century? I was going to change the 18th century reference to 19th century as an error, but saw the next section talked about criticism of homeopathy beginning in the early 19th century. I therefore am not sure if the error is in the dates of when homeopathy began to be practiced or in the reference to it becoming popular and relatively successful in the 18th century. Both cannot be accurate. The Seeker 4 Talk 16:46, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Fixed - changed to 19th. - Eldereft (cont.) 17:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Multiple papers in a single ref-tag

Current reference fifteen contains three papers, each of which is cited properly elsewhere. I fixed this here. Rather than sift through the last sixty edits, can someone just tell me why this odd, confusing, and misleading style is being used? - Eldereft (cont.) 17:12, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh well, just one of those things with collaborative editing, I suppose. Fixed again, so no worries. - Eldereft (cont.) 15:28, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Lead

Instead of, 'Claims to the efficacy......', somewhere down where people can't read it immediately, I feel we should have it right in the beginning, 'Homeopathy is an ineffective alternative system of medicine.........'. This should be followed by the pseudoscience and quackery sentence. Wikipedia rules say we should have criticism in the Lead. I thought I'd discuss it before doing it.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 09:40, 21 February 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))

The lead is typically considered everything up until the first section break, not just the first paragraph. I think the current version is very good. It starts off with what homeopathy is (this should come first), then what it's used for and how(this should come second), and then discusses the evidence for its effectiveness. This is also roughly the order that the article takes, and the lead is intended to be a summary of the article's important points. Phil153 (talk) 09:51, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. "ineffective" is judging; it is not our place to judge, but instead to present both sides. Ironholds (talk) 19:25, 21 February 2009 (UTC)
I see that Naturstud made the pseudoscience and quackery sentence allude only to Homeopathy on the article on Naturopathy, while Eubulides and Bryan Hopping did not even allow that sentence on the Chiropractic and Osteopathy articles respectively. I also read something at *[1]
You, Ironholds used the word judging, so should we remove that sentence (pseudoscience and quackery) altogether?-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 03:35, 23 February 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
Phil's rationale is sound. There's no need to water down the statement here, we have good sources cited. What goes on for other articles doesn't change that. WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS.LeadSongDog (talk) 06:33, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Nonlocality

The section #Research on medical effectiveness currently mentions without defining local vs. nonlocal models, cited to a paper in Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. If this viewpoint is relevant, it should be explained and expanded. If not, it should be removed. - Eldereft (cont.) 08:31, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

It seems to be a reference to Quantum mysticism (on a quick read). I say junk it for now, even if the "effect" is "nonlocal" the correlations could be tested for - just like in QM. However, it isn't, so it can be tested directly, and this adds nothing. Verbal chat 08:45, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
It generally invokes "weak quantum theory". I've added a reference for this. See also Lionel Milgrom's work on the same topic, for example this paper, and the associated "eletters" from Daniel Chrastina. Milgrom has published somewhere over a dozen papers on this topic so far. Brunton (talk) 12:33, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Wow, that sure is a ... novel ... interpretation of quantum mechanics. Is patient-practitioner-remedy entanglement mentioned in any of our nice general reviews of the field? If we keep this, it really needs to be made clear that this is not actually based in physics. - Eldereft (cont.) 19:14, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps homeopaths consulting rooms are for some reason non-local boxes (these are more powerful than QM entanglement, involving polytopes and stuff - crazy). Milgroms stuff is, I believe, fringe (or at least minority) amongst homeopaths and shouldn't be given much weight. Verbal chat 22:28, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
If you want to see how homoeopaths view QM, you could always try "Wiki4CAM". Brunton (talk) 23:31, 15 February 2009 (UTC) EDIT: They've deleted the page. Brunton (talk) 08:36, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
That's not very sporting! Or maybe they realised it was rubbish. Verbal chat 11:50, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
It's still in Google's cache. Brunton (talk) 12:27, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

- This study : The conclusions on the effectiveness of homeopathy highly depend on the set of analyzed trials. should be used ?

Finally, I see that the following study is not used. The conclusions on the effectiveness of homeopathy highly depend on the set of analyzed trials.

I asked before and one editor argued that it is not a good source (no true since the same journal is already used), and another editor disagreed with the findings of the study The criticisms are baseless. (This is not a valid argument for exclusion since the source is reliable. ) But maybe this issue has been discussed before and I cannot find it in the archives. If this is the case please show me.--JeanandJane (talk) 06:14, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Your links are bad. Just give us the PMID.OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 10:22, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
I've looked it over. It ignores that Shang compared the homeopathic studies with conventional medicine - in short, ignores what was actually done in Shang - and simply tweaks results to show that, as Shang already showed, changing the cutoff for inclusion changes the results, without considering if the same happened in the conventional medicine being compared to it.
No surprise that one of the authors is from the Association of Dutch homeopathic physicians. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
The link JeanandJane tried to give was http://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356(08)00190-X if I'm not mistaken.LeadSongDog (talk) 15:22, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
There are discussions of this study here and here, which explain why it isn't particularly notable. Both admittedly from blogs, but written by a respected science blogger and doctor, and by a postdoctoral researcher who has had comments accepted for publication in Homeopathy, respectively (the fact that the critiques are from blogs is no reason not to consider them on a talk page in any case). Brunton (talk) 15:39, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
I am not debating the content of the review or the writer s associations. I might agree or not agree. The fact is that the above review about homeopathy‘s effectiveness (a central and controversial topic) is published in a good reliable source. Should we faithfully report the findings or not ? --JJ 15:33, 26 February 2009 (UTC)--JJ 15:33, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
It's not so much a "review about homeopathy's effectiveness" as a comment on the findings of the Shang paper. Brunton (talk) 15:42, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Writers performed a sensitivity analysis on various other meaningful trial subsets of all high quality trials. The paper was accepted for publication in an important journal.Therefore it is "notable" ( I remind you again that the source is being used in the article. ) I see no reason for exclusion.--JJ 15:54, 26 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by JeanandJane (talk • contribs)
It's been added with (what I think is) appropriate weight, although I still don't know if it's notable/relevant enough for inclusion, since it's merely a commentary on one review out of many. If we post every follow up commentary on every review the article would be a mess. I don't really have an opinion on whether this one belongs so others can sort that out. Phil153 (talk) 16:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks Phil153. I think it belongs there. BTW there are not so many reviews or commnents about Homeopathy in good journals. So I would not worry about space. Now when you have the time could you explain which criterion you used to define the weight of the particular paper?Best --JJ 16:11, 26 February 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by JeanandJane (talk • contribs)
I looked over the whole article to find a place for it. The lead is heavily supported by numerous highly reliable sources and this would be massively undue weight vs the strength of the other studies. And it already says Supporters claim a few high-quality studies support the efficacy of homeopathy, which this isn't, and the pro-homeo view isn't being suppressed given the collective weight of evidence per WP:DUE. So it doesn't belong in the lead.
The first place it could belong is at Medical and scientific analysis, and I put it directly after the mention of the Shang study, which this one critiques. Given that the conclusion of your study is Because of the high heterogeneity between the trials, Shang's results and conclusions are less definite than had been presented., I can't see how it could possibly be used anywhere else, or as a standalone somewhere. Phil153 (talk) 16:20, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
Thanks again for taking the time to explain. However I think we need specific criteria to define weight. Impact of the specific Journal for instance. Once these criteria have clearly stated, then we can discuss more about the neutral point of view and the article. More later. --JeanandJane (talk) 16:29, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't think criteria can be a substitute for good judgment in this area, even though superificially, judgment appears more subjective. Journal impact factors, individual study cites, the reliability/COI/biases/reputation of the person or group publishing the study, the uniqueness of the study, the non-impact prestige of the journal, etc, all factor in in different ways. It's a big pile of crap you've got to wade through to get consensus on, a bit like scientific ideas themselves. I think if what you suggest was possible, there would already be exhaustive criteria at places like WP:RS Phil153 (talk) 16:38, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
JeanandJane wrote: "Writers performed a sensitivity analysis on various other meaningful trial subsets of all high quality trials." It looks as if you intended this as a comment on my observation that it isn't a "review about homeopathy's effectiveness". What the writers actually said in their conclusions was this: "Our results do neither prove that homeopathic medicines are superior to placebo nor do they prove the opposite. This, of course, was never our intention, this article was only about how the overall results and the conclusions drawn from them change depending on which subset of homeopathic trials is analyzed. As heterogeneity between trials makes the results of a meta-analysis less reliable, it occurs that Shang’s conclusions are not so definite as they have been reported and discussed." It certainly isn't notable on the basis of its [lack of] findings about the effectiveness of homoeopathy. As has been observed elsewhere, it is really nothing more than an attempt to refute Shang by reanalysis of the same set of 21 studies. Brunton (talk) 16:37, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
The summary given to this paper, and advocated for by JeanAndJane is an obvious tautology, being used to give the spin that Shang and other such studies are flawed. No evidence has yet been given that this is notable or especially relevant, so I think it should be removed - at the very least for NPOV reasons. Verbal chat 17:14, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
How is this an obvious tautology? The Stang studies selected 8 out of the 21 studies it considered high quality out of 110 total, and used it to show statistically that there was no effect from homepathy. JeanJane's paper shows that had different ones out of those 21 been selected, the outcome would have been different, and furthermore that there was significant variability based solely on a particular study on homeopathy's effectiveness on running. In other words, unless I'm missing something, the truth of this study would seriously bring into question the value of the Stang review. Phil153 (talk) 17:38, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) The statement "Our results do neither prove that homeopathic medicines are superior to placebo nor do they prove the opposite." should raise a few eyebrows on its own. Consider the hypothesis that "homeopathic medicines are placebos". If true, no test cadre could be large enough to demonstrate that truth. If false, however, there may still be so small an effect beyond placebo that a sufficiently large cadre could be assembled to prove it false. Only a large effect beyond placebo can be shown to be statistically significant for a feasibly-small cadre.LeadSongDog (talk) 17:43, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Well. Again I m not debating the actual content of the study. This could be original reasearsh or advocacy for or against.I suggest that everybody avoids it. I just said exclusion according to wiki criteria is not justified and makes the article less neutral. I did not hear a good reason for exclusion. I read only that the above editors dont personally agree with the actual content. --JeanandJane (talk) 17:44, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
There are over 100 studies in this field. Wikipedia is not a literature review, and despite our policy on original research, writing an article on something is exactly that - tightly controlled original research on secondary sources to synthesize an article that summarizes the topic and presents it intelligently to the reader. You can't just say "this study exists, therefore it should be included". It may be irrelevant, already covered, not reliable enough, give undue weight, not belong anywhere, and so on. You need to make an argument for why it deserves inclusion, especially since the study narrowly limits itself to reviewing Stang's work and could only, at best, be used to point out the boundaries of that work. Note that other sections cover similar ideas about picking groups of studies, so in some ways the points raised are redundant. Phil153 (talk) 17:58, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

←Wow, lots of indents. Nevertheless, one thing that continues to bother me about every single CAM article I edit--there are thousands of studies that show conclusively something doesn't work. But there are always editors who want to add the single, obscure study, often from obscure journals, that conclusively proves that this or that cures this or that. 99.9% of studies show that homeopathy is no better than placebo (and I have a whole argument that placebo effects don't actually exist, and I'm not alone in this opinion in the medical and scientific community). Why do we spend any amount of time writing about, synthesizing, or analyzing the every single article out there. Now, if homeopathy were the subject of serious scientific discussion, we would include a lot of different viewpoints. Anyways, I'm not sure this article belongs. It doesn't really say what JandJ believed, and it's not that important. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 18:25, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Agree, I also see this problem about adding single studies against lots of studies in more reliable sources. This is undue weight for one more review published in second-tier journals, trying to counter-point one paper published in first-tier journals with allegued flaws. Shang's review was published in Lancet, the most reliable and notable journal in medicine (if I'm not mistaken). Had this paper really shown anything conclusive about Shang's review or about reviews on homeopathy, it would have been published directly in Lancet, but it wasn't. See also all the other top-reliability sources not giving credence to homeopathy effects, are we supposed to counter each one with studies trying to find flaws on them which has been published on way less notable sources? --Enric Naval (talk) 22:07, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

[Unindent] As I said before, this paper is not a valid critique, because it looks only at the selection of the homeopathic studies - but not at the conventional medicine studies they were compared to. "Different results would have been obtained if Shang et al. had applied different standards to the homeopathic prong than to the conventional medicine prong" is all that could be said - and that's nonsense. If this was intended to be a valid comparison, it would be necessary to show that applying more lax criteria did not affect the conventional medicine prong in ways that made the conclusions still valid. The authors do not even attempt this, thus ignoring the actual methods Shang used to attack a strawman. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:20, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that this paper is being brought up because it has been touted by proponents of homeopathy as "blowing Shang out of the water". There was also a press release about it (and the other paper Dana alludes to) entitled New evidence for Homeopathy - a little odd in that neither of the papers it promoted appears to provide much in the way of new evidence for homeopathy. If anyone wants a comment on the second paper, of which Dana wrote, "wait until you see another article on this subject in an upcoming issue of HOMEOPATHY", there's one here which has now been accepted for publication in the same journal. Brunton (talk) 12:18, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Is there anyone left who still thinks the paper belongs in the article or have we slaughtered enough electrons so we can move on to another topic?LeadSongDog (talk) 14:32, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
I think the comments against the study's worth are either nonsense or OR. It's published in a journal that's good enough for other (skeptical) references, and it casts serious and credible doubt on the reliability of Stang, which is used more than once in the article. But once the skeptical cabal forms a wagon circle, nothing gets through, so this is pointless anyway. Phil153 (talk) 14:37, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
It's basically just a post-hoc analysis of the same data as Shang (ironically, precisely what the Rutten/Stolper paper accuses Shang of, with no real justification), with no attention paid to the comparison to the matched set of studies of conventional medicine, as mentioned by Shoemaker's Holiday. It adds very little, and certainly doesn't negate the conclusions of Shang. Brunton (talk) 14:57, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Fully agree with Brunton et al. This reference does not support the text that was being referenced by it in the article. Reply to Phil: your view on this study is also an opinion and "OR". That doesn't make your view any less relevant in this discussion. Also, note that the word "cabal" has a bit of a history on WP and is considered, at the very least, quite uncivil. The reference does not cast any meaningful doubt on the results of the Shang analysis. Verbal chat 15:01, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
It was good enough for the peer reviewers and editors of a peer reviewed journal, a journal whose papers are used elsewhere to support skeptical views. But Wikipedia editors know better than expert peer reviewers, it seems. And it 100% supports the text it was used for: However, others have noted that the results may be sensitive to the selection of studies for review. Note that I think homeopathy is total bollocks. I also think selectively including and excluding studies from the same journal is total bollocks. I think there could be valid reasons for excluding this study, but most of the objections raised don't touch on these reasons. Phil153 (talk) 15:15, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
Homoeopaths have been attempting to discredit Shang ever since it was published, because they don't like its conclusions. From the critiques of this particular paper linked to above it is apparent that its observations are not particularly damaging to Shang's conclusions. Brunton (talk) 15:41, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
The reason that this article engenders such hostility from the science cabal (we can come up with a better name) is that it is one, single, article that it quite equivocal in its support of anything about the usefulness of homeopathic lotions and potions. There is no evidence whatsoever that homeopathy works, violating basic principles of chemistry and physics is just one point, so finding one small study, that needs to manipulate data, is just not sufficient for notability and reliability. This article, as best as I can tell, is a data massaging article, which is subject to interpretation. If we want to have an article that supports homeopathy, then get one that has 1) significant patient population (let's say n=100), 2) a real and credible placebo group, 3) a low drop-out rate, and 4) publication in a real journal with a high impact factor. Reinterpreting data is important, but not as critical as research. I think we've slaughtered way too many electrons. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 17:47, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
(unindent) I think it's more subtle than that, and I'm going to address this here because it's relevant to the article and the irrational opposition to the inclusion of evidence generally. You write above that there are "thousands" of study showing that CAMs don't work, and that 99.9% percent of studies show it's nothing better than placebo. That is, for want of a better term, unadulterated BS. There are plenty of studies that show positive results, above placebo, for both homeopathy and many other things from "healing hands" to completely ineffective drugs to acupuncture. Some of them even get published in the most reputable journals by high profile scientists [2][3]. Some even get replicated, such as studies on Oscillococcinum. These studies really do exist, whether via fraud, publication bias, poor controls, bad assumptions, poor reporting, unappreciated placebo effects (i.e. regression to the mean), inaccurate conclusions, and so on, and they really do provide prima facie evidence for the effectiveness. Many drugs get approved with dangerous side effects AND less compelling evidence for effectiveness than homeopathy or acupuncture. The reliability of research is a huge problem in science.
Homeopathy is obviously ridiculous, which is why we know beyond all doubt that all these studies are 100% flawed. But that doesn't mean the Stang study is correct; I think it's quite likely that it sits on very shaky ground, being subject to significant variation based on arbitrary choice of studies and comparisons to include. This is a valid critique, that passed peer review in a journal good enough to quote skeptical claims from, and we shouldn't be covering it up. I think the truth trumps POV, even if lets a few more people believe in something that's ridiculous. Anything else merely harms the credibility of science and our articles to an impartial observer, especially in areas where the issue could potentially be undecided (not here, obviously).
Anyway, no more from me on this topic...I just see a serious problem in our CAM and fringe articles with pathological skepticism and overly skeptical content decisions, which, while leading to the right belief, is a faulty methodology. Phil153 (talk) 19:32, 27 February 2009 (UTC)
"Many drugs get approved with dangerous side effects AND less compelling evidence for effectiveness than homeopathy or acupuncture." Not in the UK, at least - homeopathy has had to have special regulations introduced for it, because during a period of over 20 years from the 1970s to the 1990s when no new medicine could be introduced to the market without providing evidence of efficacy, it was impossible to obtain licences for new homoeopathic products (see this archived page from the MHRA site). It wasn't necessary to do this for real medicines. Brunton (talk) 15:17, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Again I dont know if the findings of the study are correct or not. Summarizing the reasons for inclusion. 1.The paper claims that it challenges the LAncet 2005 findings ( homeopathy is effective as a placebo therapy). it is notable because these fidings were used by some goverments to cut homeopathy funds. 2.It is published in a good source which is already in use.J Clin Epidemiol 52 (7): 631–636. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeopathy#Research_on_medical_effectiveness In fact it is the only journal from which a whole quote has been taken and included in the Homeopathy article.--JeanandJane (talk) 17:23, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you create a new section of this discussion, proposing exactly what you want to say. I'm curious, though not at all supportive right now. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 17:37, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Lead: "the principle that ultradilute preparations..."

From the current lead: "the principle that ultradilute preparations treat the same symptoms caused by ingestion of the undiluted substance". The principle is simply that "like cures like". Hahnemann's original observation was that material doses of cincona bark, which could treat malaria, produced malaria-like symptoms in healthy volunteers. He introduced the dilutions because material doses of substances that produce symptoms had a nasty tendency to make the patient worse. Since the mid 19th century, although the remedies used are pretty much always dilute or ultradilute, the "provings" (through which homoeopaths attempt to identify out what symptoms a remedy will produce, and therefore what it should be used to treat) are pretty much always carried out using the potentised remedies, not the undiluted substance. This needs to be changed in order to not give the wrong impression, from whatever point of view one looks at it (the mention of ultradilute preparations is often cited by proponents of homoeopathy as the sole or major argument against homoeopathy, so either way it's something of a strawman). Brunton (talk) 14:02, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Potentization and similia similibus curentur should both be mentioned at the outset (ed. as concepts - specialized terminology belongs in the body), as they are the defining principles of homeopathy. I would be amenable to wording placing "like cures like" first or with greater emphasis as long as some semblance of simplicity and clarity is retained. Please make a concrete proposal for discussion here? - Eldereft (cont.) 17:18, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I would suggest amending the first sentence to "Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine based on the principle of the law of similars, which states that disease can be treated using remedies that would cause the symptoms of the disease in a healthy subject."
The only reasonable wording for the above statement is to say that "Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine based on the UNFOUNDED ASSUMPTION that...blah blah blah... like cures like." The word "principle" suggests to the novice reader that the idea of "the law of similars" actually means something, which it surely does not, being that it is nothing more than idiosyncratic jargon.Puddin'head Wilson (talk) 06:38, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps as a second sentence (not so sure about this one - don't quite like how it reads): "Homeopathy characteristically uses remedies "potentized" by repeated dilution and succussion, which are often so dilute as to contain none of the starting material." Brunton (talk) 19:09, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I really don't think it helpful to begin the article with a lengthy section of unexplained jargon, some of it in Latin. "Potentised", "succussion", "similia similibus curentur", and "law of similars" should not appear without being explained. As explaining them is both complicated, and simpler words exist - "strengthened by dilution", "shaking" "like cures like", and "like cures like", respectively - I see no need to use homeopathic jargon until the main body of the article. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:42, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
OK, how about:
"Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine based on the principle that disease can be treated using remedies that would cause the symptoms of the disease in a healthy subject. It characteristically uses remedies prepared by repeated dilution and shaking, which are often so dilute as to contain none of the starting material." Brunton (talk) 22:10, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Forget that second sentence: I should have paid more attention to what is already there! Brunton (talk) 22:14, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Agree with Shoemaker's Holiday re: jargon (amended comment above).
I think Brunton's proposal is workable, though stylistically loose (concision and clarity matter for FA). How about: Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine using preparations whose effects on healthy persons correspond to those of a disorder. Remedies are prepared by repeated dilution and shaking, and often contain none of the starting material. - Eldereft (cont.) 22:23, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Brunton has the right of it - striking second sentence in favor of third sentence of current lead. - Eldereft (cont.) 22:27, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't think it should imply that the preparations actually produce the effects in healthy people: there have been a number of properly double-blinded "provings" of remedies at 30C (the potency recommended by Hahnemann for provings) which have found no actual effect. See for example Brien S, Lewith G, Bryant T. Ultramolecular homeopathy has no observable clinical effects. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled proving trial of Belladonna 30C. In view of the available evidence, surely it should say that it is "based on the principle that..." rather than that it actually does it. Brunton (talk) 23:18, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
"...whose effects on healthy persons superficially (or "have some resemblance to the symptoms of a disorder") correspond to those of a disorder." would be more accurate. Just because a substance can produce (for example) a fever, doesn't mean it produces all the other symptoms of a certain disease in which fever is just one of the symptoms. Poor Hahnemann got off on the wrong foot because he (unknowingly) was allergic to cinchona bark and it caused a reaction. Starting with that already corrupted starting point, he created a whole system. -- Fyslee (talk) 23:41, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I'm not certain about using "superficially" or "have some resemblance to the symptoms of a disorder". Homoeopaths claim that they attempt to precisely match all the individual patient's symptoms (even down to things like food preferences). Brunton (talk) 23:49, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Dantas (2007) is fairly harsh on the replicability of the provings themselves, too. I am going to defer to other opinions on this for now - I agree that we must describe the system without assuming it. We could insert based on the principle of between "medicine" and "using" in my proposal above, but that reads kinda meh. - Eldereft (cont.) 23:57, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Brunton, they may "try" to do it, but it will still be a superficial resemblance, and to the best of my knowledge I've never seen evidence that they actually do what they claim. The only way to really get all the symptoms would be to give the patient the real illness, not by making a proving. Lab tests won't show the same results as with the real illness, so any similarity will only be a resemblance. We are, after all, dealing with an illusion. -- Fyslee (talk) 02:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Indeed, and that's why I don't like the wording "...preparations whose effects on healthy persons correspond to those of a disorder". The preparations appear to have no real effects, so we need to avoid implying that they do. The current first sentence of the lead is not actually true and therefore needs to be changed, in my opinion, so since we have some sort of consensus as to the meaning we're aiming at, if not the precise wording, I am going to change it to "...based on the principle that disease can be treated using medicines that would cause the symptoms of the disease in a healthy subject." I think this states reasonably clearly the basic principle of homoeopathy, and can't really see how to make it any more concise. If anyone can edit it down further without losing any of the meaning... Brunton (talk) 08:30, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

This change is for the worse. The lead sentence should make it clear that homeopathy treats people with heavily diluted preparations. The current lead doesn't do that: it puts off the dilution until near the end of the lead paragraph, which is way too late. The lead sentence should mention heavy dilution. Omitting dilution from the lead sentence of Homeopathy would be like not mentioning the spine in the lead sentence of Chiropractic. Eubulides (talk) 08:44, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

We need to describe what homoeopathy is in the first sentence. The basic principle is "like cures like". Extreme dilutions are not exclusively used. Perhaps we could swap the order of the second and third sentences? Brunton (talk) 09:34, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Extreme dilutions may not be exclusively used, but they are at the core of homeopathy in practice and must be in the first sentence. The situation with Chiropractic is similar: chiropractors do not exclusivly treat the spine, and the traditional chiropractic philosophy is about "Innate Intelligence" rather than the spine per se; but as a practical matter the spine is at the core of chiropractic, just as extreme dilutions are at the center of homeopathy. Core characteristics should be in the lead sentence. Eubulides (talk) 09:47, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
I don't think that the dilutions can be included in the first sentence without making it unwieldy. Certainly the word "ultradilute" that was originally there has no place here (see comments about jargon above), and we need to be careful to give a concise view of what homoeopathy actually is rather than the "sceptic's version". I'm swapping the sentence order - how does it read now? Brunton (talk) 10:04, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Better, but it'd be better still to mention dilutions in the first sentence. It need not be unwieldy. Here's a first cut:
"Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine that treats a disease with medicines that would ordinarily cause the disease's symptoms, heavily diluted under the theory that this makes the medicines stronger as a cure."
This lead sentence captures the two central axioms of homeopathy; the current lead sentence captures just the first one. Also, this lead sentence captures the notion that higher dilutions are supposed to make the medicines more powerful, a central notion of homeopathy that is entirely absent from the lead right now (!). Eubulides (talk) 10:31, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
If we can insert a qualification such as "often" or "usually" before "heavily diluted", this sentence will get strong support from me. Otherwise – a little white lie in the leading sentence is normally OK, but then the rest of the article (and, ideally, the lede) needs to contribute to an understanding that the situation is slightly more complicated. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:55, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
The first sentence is still not quite right, certainly as homoeopathy is currently practised. The idea that "provings" are carried out using material doses is often suggested by homoeopaths (see the comments about allium cepa here, for example) as it makes the whole thing appear perhaps slightly less implausible, but this is not the case - provings are carried out using potentised remedies. The evidence from double-blind provings strongly suggests that the medicines do not ordinarily cause any symptoms. We should not be including this myth in the lead. Brunton (talk) 12:08, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
Excellent point. I just verified that according to Hahnemann (Organon, 6th ed., §128) provings are done with 30X pills. It would be nice to also have a modern source saying that that's still how it's done. --Hans Adler (talk) 14:09, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
It's a little difficult to find anything definitive. All the provings I've found published on the internet (e.g.here) seem to use potentised remedies, but I'm having problems finding a reliable source that details how provings are carried out. Here's a description of proving from a book published in 2000, stating that "the homeopathic medicine or a placebo" is administered, and contrasting this with toxicology reports on drugs which it describes as "a toxic proving instead of a harmless homeopathic proving" (last two paragraphs of p. 215). There may be something better out there. Brunton (talk) 14:36, 16 February 2009 (UTC)
I've found a better source for this, I think: Kayne, S. B. and Caldwell, I. M. (2006): Homeopathic pharmacy: theory and practice. 2nd Ed. Elsevier Health Sciences at p. 52: "While, in the beginning, Hahnemann used mainly mother tinctures and low potencies for homeopathic provings, he later switched to centesimal dilutions (30c), and many of his followers did the same. Most recent provings have been conducted with ultramolecular dilutions (>12c). It is highly unlikely that any original molecule is present in such medicines." Perhaps this should be included in the section on provings. Brunton (talk) 23:17, 19 February 2009 (UTC)
Brilliant. My opinion on homeopaths' common sense has just dropped a bit further. This is how to debunk a topic, not by shouting or namecalling. --Hans Adler (talk) 08:50, 20 February 2009 (UTC)
I've edited the start of the second paragraph of the "Provings" section to include this (and to split up what was becoming a rather unwieldy sentence) Brunton (talk) 22:08, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I tried to change Eubulides' proposed leading sentence to account for Brunton's objection. It wasn't easy, and I had to change the sentence structure completely.

"Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine which is motivated by the two ideas of using medicine that would ordinarily cause the patient's symptoms and diluting it heavily to amplify the desired effect."

Brunton, I think you wanted to remove the similia similibus bit completely, but could you accept this as a compromise between brevity, homeopathy's self-concept and objective truth? --Hans Adler (talk) 02:11, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

That lead sentence works for me; thanks. Eubulides (talk) 09:55, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
I find that acceptable - good work. It might need a comma after symptoms, and preparations might work better than medicine. - Eldereft (cont.) 14:24, 17 February 2009 (UTC)
I agree with "preparations". Personally I am not bothered by "medicines", but in the past some editors have been, and making the change should reduce the danger of drive-by reverts. I also have a vague feeling that there should be a comma, but at the same time I feel that it's potentially confusing because the preceding phrase is sufficiently long that you have to think (just a little bit) about whether it contains only one of the two ideas or both. I am happy either way. --Hans Adler (talk) 15:08, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Recent reverts

A couple of the changes made by NootherIDAvailable have some merit, so I've reinstated them. in particular the word "symptoms" at line 13 is a good edit - many homoeopaths don't really consider specific diseases to exist, and consider each patient to have their own unique pattern of symptoms instead. Brunton (talk) 12:48, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Works. But a lot of them were really bad, like confusing succussion (shaking) with dilution, or citing a wiki to counter another source. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 21:43, 1 March 2009 (UTC)
I'd like 'As well as the symptoms of the disease......' to change to 'Apart from the symptoms of the disease......' - it's more appropriate grammatically. Anyone think otherwise?-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 12:54, 4 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
A common criticism (made, for example, in Britannica) is that Homeopathy focusses on the symptoms rather than actual causes, etc, so I'd actually like to see better references for that part of the lead. Is that criticism included in the article? Verbal chat 12:58, 4 March 2009 (UTC)
I'm only commenting about the grammar of that sentence. I think you are refering to something more, which I'd like you to elaborate. Thanks.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 13:10, 4 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
I'd also like to add this ref, 'whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2001/WHO_EDM_TRM_2001.2.pdf', showing that licenses are required in most countries.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 13:13, 4 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
I have no problems with "as well as..." - homoeopaths certainly use the symptoms as well as other factors. Brunton (talk) 00:47, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Grammatically, a sentence can't begin with, 'As well as...'- it can be, 'Apart from...' or 'Along with...'-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 09:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
I also want to add that Hippocrates and Paracelsus had used the homeopathic principle before Hahnemann, using this ref:http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/270182/homeopathy
Any objections?-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 09:52, 5 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
I'm also going to add this ref:http://www.britishhomeopathic.org/media_centre/facts_about_homeopathy/the_evidence_base.html, if there are no objections in the next 24 hours.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 05:00, 6 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
I would suggest you get a lot of agreement before making any more huge changes. And learn how to do references...this article has been cleaned up on a number of occasions, and it takes a lot of work. See, WP:CITET for help. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 05:06, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Do you have a problem with the references I've provided? If so, please tell me about them. If you have a problem with the way I use references, I'm sure you can set them right instead of just reverting my edits. The wiki is based on collaborative editing, not edit wars, I'm sure we can work something out, unless you have something against homeopathy, personally.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 05:15, 6 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
Yes, I have a huge problem with the citation. First, it fails WP:MEDRS. Yes, this is a medical article. Unless you want to categorize it as magic, which I'm willing to support. Homeopathy doesn't work, and people are harmed by avoiding real medical treatment to get a drink of homeopathic potions, i.e. water. Other than, I don't care about homeopathy. OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 05:41, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
From edit summary: "succussion is a method which involves not just shaking but also dilution by 1:10 or 1:100". No, succussion is the term for the shaking part of the process: the whole process is dilution + succussion. Brunton (talk) 12:20, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
The information about Paracelsius and Hippocrates doesn't currently belong in the lead simply because it doesn't appear in the article. It might be worth including as a brief historical note in the article, but it almost certainly wouldn't belong in the lead even if it were in the article, as the lead is briefly outlining homoeopathy as a system of medicine, and there's no real evidence that Hahnemann based his system on their earlier ideas. By the way, the source you cite above for Hippocrates and Paracelsius doesn't appear to mention Hippocrates (I believe Hippocrates may have mentioned the idea of like cures like in his writings, but I don't recall seeing any evidence that he actually used it). Additionally it is a tertiary source, so it may be necessary to get a better source.
What were you planning to use the BHA reference for? It comes from an organisation that states "The British Homeopathic Association exists to promote homeopathy practised by doctors and other healthcare professionals", has a link to a document that largely cherry-picks positive trials, and then mentions two patient outcome surveys that, by their design (they don't have any control group), can't tell us anything about the effectiveness of homoeopathy. Brunton (talk) 13:30, 6 March 2009 (UTC)
Why don't you guys (anybody is welcome) add whatever you think is useful, from the references I've provided? I don't have the time!-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 11:52, 10 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))

[undent] If we're going to include the BHA's review of 134 trials up to the end of 2007, 59 of which were positive and 8 negative, perhaps we should also include their earlier review of 119 trials up to the end of 2005, with 58 positive and 4 negative. This would indicate that between 2005 and 2007 there were only 15 new trials, and that only one of these had a "positive" outcome. There is the problem, of course, that neither of these reviews seems to have been published anywhere so we can't really know what they said. Brunton (talk) 12:23, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

FA

This article has been reasonably stable for some time - I think it's time to consider an FA nomination. Any objections? Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 19:01, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Should tidy up the remaining tags first, but it seems about ready for review anyhow.LeadSongDog (talk) 21:30, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

Well with all due regards, I'd like the editors of this article to do a bit more research in the continent of Asia and specifically Indian subcontinent where Homeopathy is largely practiced and and popular. Also please read the entire "Organon" and "Materia Medica" before editing on the subject. There was no mention of the "Organon" which holds the main principle of Homeopathy. Ndxinroy (talk) 14:53, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

With all due regards, I'd like the critics to read the article before stating that it lacks something it actually contains.LeadSongDog (talk) 15:04, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
You should clearly read all of wikipedia before criticising any aspect... Verbal chat 15:38, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
This article should never be a FA-it's an attack piece.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 13:56, 18 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
Please state the wording change that would better reflect the verifiable, reliable sources while correcting what you see as an attack.LeadSongDog (talk) 14:09, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
There's criticism throughout the article, but what irritates Homeopaths most is the pseudo-science and quackery allegation.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 14:18, 18 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
The fact that homeopathy is pseudoscience must remain in the lead per many policies and previous discussions. As to quackery, I'm less attached (in the lead, at least) - but it is fully supported by RS and consensus to include it has been established several times. WP is not meant to please everybody, that is impossible. It would be wrong given the evidence, the facts, and the preponderence of RS, to fail to describe homeopathy as a pseudoscience in the lead. Verbal chat 14:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
"Fully supported by RS" seems to be a bit of a stretch. For a long time "quackery" was only supported by the absurd Nigerian paper. That it took so long to find a seriously reliable source for the word certainly has to do with the fact that reliable sources normally don't use the word when discussing homeopathy. That it was impossible to remove even when there was no serious RS supporting it reflects badly on those who insist(ed) on the word. All of this is no basis for "must remain [...] per many policies [...]".
As to "pseudoscience", that makes much more sense, but in my opinion putting the word in the lede gives it undue weight, at least when it's done with the current formulation. Many if not all attempts to prove efficacy of homeopathy are pseudoscience. Hahnemann seems to have been a pseudoscientist (my personal opinion, I haven't got a modern source for that) at least at the end of his career. But treating patients with homeopathy is not pseudoscience. It's also not quackery. It's both hard and unnecessary to label homeopathy appropriately. By labelling it inappropriately we make sure that whatever arguments we present against homeopathy will not be read by those readers who stopped reading in disgust.
If you look at the EB article, you will see that they define it as a "system of therapeutics, notably popular in the 19th century". That's NPOV: It's an obsolete, historically important, medical system (well, they even manage to get along without the word "medical"). But what we have here in the lede is recentist debunking. --Hans Adler (talk) 16:16, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
"Quackery" should go but "pseudoscience" should stay. The documentation for the latter is so overwhelming that it would be a disservice to omit it. "Quackery" is less firmly documented, implies a deliberate attempt to deceive which is much harder to establish, and risks needlessly alienating the reader. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 02:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
See this query of PubMed for "quackery AND homeopathy". There's no shortage of evidence that even homeopaths recognize that their practice is widely seen as quackery. We don't need to go over this discussion again every other month.LeadSongDog (talk) 05:09, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
If there is no shortage of evidence, perhaps you can point to some of it. Your link doesn't work, and Enric's links point to a lot of obviously irrelevant papers and none that is obviously relevant. If just having the name of a health-related field and the word "quackery" appear together so and so many times is sufficient, then I suppose NPOV also requires that we add the word "quackery" to the lede of dentistry:
--Hans Adler (talk) 12:09, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Broken link, use these links for Pubmed and pubmed central. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:55, 20 March 2009 (UTC)
And Google Scholar Fences and windows (talk) 05:12, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, for me the second hit says: "In our analysis of the general tone of the articles, we found only a few that were clearly negative. However, those that were negative appeared in conventional journals and used relatively harsh language. For example, in one study it was stated 'homeopathy is pure quackery' [8]. That said, most of the research papers presented the results in a relatively balanced fashion."[4]. But of course in this instance we have to draw our own conclusions rather than rely on what a "systematic review of how homeopathy is represented in conventional and CAM peer reviewed journals" says, right? --Hans Adler (talk) 12:17, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
The phrase we are debating is: "The lack of convincing scientific evidence supporting homeopathy's efficacy and its use of remedies lacking active ingredients have caused homeopathy to be described as pseudoscience and quackery."
That systematic review acknowledges that conventional medicine journals are critical of homeopathy:"Almost all of the systematic reviews in conventional journals start on a skeptical note. Indeed, 9 out of 10 of the articles begin with a statement that questions the scientific plausibility of homeopathy. Some of the articles use relatively strong language to make the point. For example, Ernst and Pittler suggest that it is the use of "highly diluted material that overtly flies in the face of science and has caused homeopathy to be regarded as placebo therapy at best and quackery at worst"".
We can resolve this by saying "...to be described in the media[5] and by many scientists as pseudoscience[various refs] and quackery[6][7][8][9]A Debate: Homeopathy - Quackery Or A Key To The Future of Medicine?". That's just reporting fact; whether homeopathy actually is or is not pseudoscience or quackery is left up to the reader. Leaving out the fact that many scientists regard homeopathy as quackery (a notable fact) would be POV, and applying WP:IDONTLIKEIT. Fences and windows (talk) 15:09, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Hans' suggestion that we need to refer to dentistry as quackery ignores the actual content of the articles that his search found. They do not refer to all dentistry as quackery; rather, they flag up the problem of quackery within dentistry. Noting that there has historically been a problem of quackery within the practice of dentistry (e.g. Quackery in Dentistry -- Past and Present) in the dentistry article would be fine! Fences and windows (talk) 15:29, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Done. See Dentistry#History. Fences and windows (talk) 15:41, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Are you serious? You are replying to my response to LeadSongDog and formatting as if you were replying to my response to you. Bad style. You take what was clearly marked as a reductio ad absurdum and pretend that I seriously suggested to mark dentistry as quackery? Wow.
By the way, your contribution suffers from the same problems as LeadSongDog's: You pointed to a search rather than to any specific, usable, reliable source, and what you are arguing for contradicts the meta-review I quoted above. I would really appreciate it if someone would respond to the substance of what I am saying rather than engage in rhetorical tricks, whether intentional or not. --Hans Adler (talk) 16:18, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Hans, please assume good faith. Formatting issues on talk pages are a very minor issue, but my apologies for any confusion caused. I employed no rhetorical tricks. I know your comment about dentistry was intended to be reductio ad absurdum, but it actually wasn't a good argument. As I said - if you read my comments - those citations do not refer to dentistry as a whole as quackery, but only to a historical problem of quackery. In all seriousness, I thought a mention of the fact was worth adding to the Dentistry article; it is a notable fact, and I wasn't messing about or vandalising . By way of contrast, the citations found by myself and Enric Naval refer to homeopathy as a whole as quackery. Regarding the meta-review, if you actually read my comments you'll see I quoted from it to show that 9 of 10 of the systematic reviews in conventional journals refer to the scientific implausability of homeopathy in the lead, and at least one directly refers to it as "quackery". Edzard Ernst, a Professor of CAM, has referred to homeopathy in a published article as "quackery". Linking to a search was not intended to be the be-all-and-end-all of the debate; it was a quick way to flag to editors that literature on the subject exists in abundance. Subsequently, I didn't just link to a search, I flagged several individual articles that call homeopathy quackery. It is undeniable that scientists and the media often refer to homeopathy as quackery, and if you really need we can find tens or even hundreds of examples. This is a notable stance, and it has to be included in this article. Fences and windows (talk) 17:26, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
Sorry. No need to assume good faith, actually. It's enough to read your 15:09 comment, in which you do respond to the substance of my argument. Sorry again, I shouldn't respond when I don't have the time to read properly, as was the case. Now once again I haven't got enough time. I will respond in detail later. --Hans Adler (talk) 18:00, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
No problem. I'm not wedded to a reference to "quackery" in the lead; pseudoscience would do there in my opinion. There is enough notable, verifiable comment from scientists to the effect that they think that homeopathy is quackery to warrant inclusion at some point in the article, suitably worded and referenced. Fences and windows (talk) 02:53, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Good, so I've removed it from the Lead.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 03:37, 22 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
Sorry, but there is no consensus for that deletion of a long standing, well referenced assertion that numerous editors have made clear they think belongs. Restored.LeadSongDog (talk) 04:39, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Ah, I was going to do the same for the same reasons. The paper linked by Hans lists two reviews calling it "quackery". Add the references there, and it's perfectly adequate that it's been describe as "quackery". --Enric Naval (talk) 04:52, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
Ahem. NootherIDAvailable, it's fine to be bold in editing, but my opinion on the wording =/= consensus! Fences and windows (talk) 23:42, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
I think we can have that word lower down instead of the Lead. I also want to know what is wrong with the WHO doc about the qualifications for Homeopathy?-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 03:11, 23 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
Reserving judgement on the reference, the wording isn't good: "The lack of convincing scientific evidence supporting homeopathy's efficacy and its use of remedies lacking active ingredients have caused homeopathy to be described as pseudoscience and quackery, although licenses and professional qualifications are required in most countries". That is a non sequitur; the "although" doesn't contradict the first clause. Fences and windows (talk) 03:35, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Professional qualifications and licenses

I've made a couple of edits without breaking any rules. Please discuss things here if you want to revert them. I don't want an edit war!-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 15:35, 15 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))

I reverted the edit as I felt it was in the wrong place and the use of "although" was misleading. Rather than saying "please don't revert" it would be better to justify the edits or even propose them here first, in order to avoid any reverts at all. Yours, Verbal chat 15:41, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
So let's discuss the merits. Wrong place? Yes. Just like the word "quackery" doesn't belong in the lede. "Although" misleading? No. There is an obvious tension between some scientists (still a minority, I believe) calling a field "quackery" and states acknowledging and controlling the CAM professionals who work in that field. Besides, I don't have the exact numbers, but from my experience I guess that about 5% of German GPs practice this particular form of "quackery" at least occasionally. --Hans Adler (talk) 16:11, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Consensus is against removing quackery, as I suggested some time ago, so it isn't worth bringing that up again so soon. In France it is practiced a lot by GPs, but it is declining and used by many as a placebo therapy. The "although" directly after the quackery charge seems to be linking things are are unlinked and could be seen as trying to spin away from the negative connotations of quackery. I think this is probably not the right thing to do. This probably should appear somewhere in the lead, but elsewhere and with a full discussion in the body (where, why, how, etc). I hope no one objects to my renaming this section. Best, Verbal chat 16:23, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
You seem to be confirming that you want to have the word in the lede in order to frame the article with its negative connotations. I don't think that's proper. "Although" would hint that the article's authors may not actually think that the accusation is correct. Similarly, "because" would hint that the article's authors agree with the accusation. Now if you read the sentence I think you will agree that we have the functional equivalent of "because". I have in the past been open to the compromise of keeping the word "quackery" but without justifying its use. This was rejected, and in keeping with AGF I thought that was because some people just don't have a sense for nuances. This incident however has shown that you, at least, are capable of getting them. Do you agree that the last lede sentence makes the quackery accusation, rather than just reporting it? --Hans Adler (talk) 16:42, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
It's pretty clear that it reports it, though if you'd like it to name (rather than just cite) one or two of the writers (e.g. Wahlberg) that made the statement, that is a straightforward thing to do that should not be too controversial.LeadSongDog (talk) 16:31, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
That would be a compromise between the present text and what I'd consider a somewhat reasonable compromise. Still, if it can be done it would be an improvement. Funny that nobody thought of sticking a who-tag into the sentence… Thanks for the suggestion. --Hans Adler (talk) 17:18, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
The last para has this sentence:-

In some countries, there are no specific legal regulations concerning the use of homeopathy, while in others, licenses or degrees in conventional medicine from accredited universities are required,

besides there's nothing wrong with the WHO document. In fact in many countries it is illegal to practice homeopathy without a license, so I hope you can re-instate that comment. I also see that the positive studies from the British Homoeopathic Association web-site (which meets WP:MEDRS criteria, vide the first table) has been removed - please re-insert it or at least let me put up a controversial tag on the article. Thanks for the help.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 13:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
If you want the BHA material included, you need to explain why it should be included. Merely saying that it satisfies criteria for inclusion isn't enough (an article is never going to be able to include every single piece of information on its subject), you need to explain what it would add to the article. A few observations: firstly, simply copying and pasting the entire text of the page as you did here is never going to be an option. You need to briefly present the information you are using the page as a source for. Second, the page is discussing the same evidence base that the article already refers to using meta-analyses published in peer reviewed journals as a source, but doesn't do it as well because it simply refers to the number of positive trials and does not take study quality into account. Why should we prefer the findings of an unpublished review to peer-reviewed articles? The second part of the page lists two outcome studies which are, by their design, unable to provide any evidence for the effectiveness of homoeopathy. Perhaps they tell us something about the lengths that homoeopaths are driven to to produce anything that looks like positive evidence, but I doubt that's what you had in mind. Finally, the BHA is perhaps not an unbiased source, since it describes itself as an organisation that "exists to promote homeopathy". Again, why should we prefer this to the peer-reviewed sources already used? Brunton (talk) 19:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
Brunton, Those studies meet WP:MEDRS criteria. The osteopathy, chiropractic and naturopathy articles point to references from their respective associations, so why can't this article (there's an external link to the BHA in our article anyway). If you don't want the entire matter, I'm sure you can condense it and insert it, since you have much more time than me. Thanks in advance for the help.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 03:22, 22 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
The BHA document is not good information for the effectiveness of homoeopathy for the reasons given above, primarily that in the first section it does not take trial quality into account. This is an issue that is highlighted even by meta-analyses that homoeopaths like to cite, such as Kleijnen 1991 ("At the moment the evidence of clinical trials is positive but not sufficient to draw definitive conclusions because most trials are of low methodological quality") and Linde 1997 ("A second major problem is the quality of the studies we included"), and even more so by Linde's 1999 paper, Impact of study quality on outcome in placebo-controlled trials of homeopathy. In addition this part of the page is redundant as far as the article is concerned as the same evidence is already discussed in the article by reference to better sources (peer-reviewed analyses of the data). The two studies cited at the bottom of the page are worthless as far as assessment of the efficacy of homoeopathy is concerned because they do not include control groups; they are little more than customer satisfaction surveys. Brunton (talk) 09:26, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
"The osteopathy, chiropractic and naturopathy articles point to references from their respective associations". NootherIDAvailable, please see WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS for reasons why arguing that "other Wikipedia pages do something, therefore so should this one" is not always fruitful. Fences and windows (talk) 17:53, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Image

Hampton House in Bristol, the former site of one of 5 homeopathic hospitals run by the NHS.

The caption for image:WomanHomeopathy.jpg has been changed to "Woman looking at Bach Flower remedies at a branch of "Whole Foods Market"". This is true; the shelf above the one she's looking at is the one stocking homeopathic remedies. As Bach Flower remedies are similar to but not the same as homeopathy, is this an appropriate picture? Fences and windows (talk) 00:09, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it isn't. And neither is the advertising. Unfortunately I no longer live in Germany, where it would be trivial to make an equivalent photo. How about this one? --Hans Adler (talk) 00:38, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Even if it were true that she was looking at something else, the image can be used to illustrate someone looking at homeopathic remedies. We don't need to give free advertising to Bach flower remedies or a store chain. -- Fyslee (talk) 04:27, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
The IP has one valid point though: The woman is clearly looking at the Bach flower row, which is below the homeopathy row. I looked for homeopathy related pictures on Commons and found the one of the former homeopathic hospital in Bristol. I think it does a better job of illustrating the regulations and prevalence section, because it demonstrates that homeopathy was once very much part of the establishment, at least in some places, and that in one of the most conservative countries in the world remnants of this can still be seen. Any comments? --Hans Adler (talk) 10:46, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
I like Hans Adler's idea - we already show what the bottles look like, and, well, any row of pill bottles looks pretty much the same. Also, we have a separate section for Bach flower remedies. - Eldereft (cont.) 14:22, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Good image. Fences and windows (talk) 17:54, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

I would like to change the image as proposed. Is anyone against this? --Hans Adler (talk) 13:09, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

The caption may need editing (the Tunbridge Wells Homeopathic Hospital was scheduled to close this month, which would only leave 4 - I'm looking for a reliable source for the actual closure) but the image is fine. Brunton (talk) 13:26, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Done. --Hans Adler (talk) 15:20, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Disputes among homeopaths as to what homeopathy is

I think that disputes among homeopaths as to what counts as "proper" homeopathy are worth including.

  • I've seen Peter Fisher and others dismiss RCTs and other studies because what was being done wasn't what they would call homeopathy, e.g. "Dr Peter Fisher, who practices at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital, said this study was not conclusive. He says homeopathy is about trying out different therapies on patients and not just choosing to give them a small dose of the suspected allergen. He said: "There have been four studies completed which show homeopathy does work for hayfever, asthma and perennial rhinitis. This study is contradictory. This is not homeopathy as it is normally practised." [10]
  • I just came across this article, in which Anthony Campbell from Royal London Homeopathic Hospital says: "Whatever one's opinion of the value of classical homoeopathy, it cannot be legitimately represented as a purely Hahnemannian teaching".
  • Also a book by Dana Ullman, that notes about pre-prepared multiple ingredient homeopathy that "Some classical homeopaths assert that these formulas are not "real homeopathy," since the medicines have not undergone their own provings". [11]
  • Edzard Ernst said this in the Guardian in 2002: "Consultations can be long and treatments can often require many visits over a long period of time. This means many cannot afford it. And then there are the medicines to buy as well." He warns people to be wary of using over-the-counter products as a substitute for consultations with qualified homeopathic practitioners - preferably both medically and homeopathically qualified. Professor Ernst also cautions: "The system invites problems. It is largely unregulated. Anyone could register as a practitioner and charge for treatment. Because of this, there is no impetus for change or tighter regulation, but more concerning is that people could be paying lots of money to people who are not competent to practice." [12]
  • I know some homeopaths think that over-the-counter selling in pharmacies is anathema, but I can't find any good sources at the moment. Fences and windows (talk) 19:05, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
The first point is to do with the distinction between homoeopathy and isopathy, which is mentioned in the article under "Treatments". The distinction between "classical" homoeopathy and "clinical" homoeopathy is also covered briefly in the same section. Another issue to do with over-the-counter homoeopathic products is their lack of individualisation. This gets rather confusing as some homoeopaths who, for example, dismiss the results of trials on the grounds that the treatments used are not individualised appear to be quite happy to www.naturalnews.com/023595.html [unreliable fringe source?] recommend] non-individualised over-the-counter products. I have rarely, if ever, seen homoeopaths objecting publicly to these products. Brunton (talk) 08:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

Original synthesis and missing sources

There are at least two instances of original synthesis in the lead.

The first sentence of the third paragraph states: Homeopathic remedies are generally considered safe, with rare exceptions. Two references are cited in support of this statement, but neither addresses the first clause. This is completely non-controversial, but should be cited regardless. Neither do these references address the issue of whether these particular instances of dangerous substances remaining after dilution are the most notable. It is likely that a quality reference treating safety could replace these.

The statement "homeopathic remedies are generally considered safe, with rare exceptions" is taken from a letter to the editor of a medical journal. It is used as a global observation by the authors of the letter but this does not qualify as a factual reference. I agree that there should be a better reference. Criticalobservation (talk) 10:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The final sentence of the third paragraph, as Eubulides notes above, treats worldwide prevalence while only citing specific sources. Use in Germany is probably a better special case, anyway. - Eldereft (cont.) 06:58, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

It looks like worldwide prevalence could be addressed by this WHO book. Does anybody have access? - Eldereft (cont.) 07:35, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Google Books has that book, in Full view format (you can read all of it for free). Eubulides (talk) 08:36, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
On the matter of safety, it's a frequently made claim, but it generally relies on the same argument that homoeopaths reject when it is brought up as a reason to suppose that the remedies have no effects at all: that the remedies are so dilute that they can't produce side-effects. There may not be much reliable literature on this point. Brunton (talk) 12:43, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Ironic, isn't it? If the criticism that there is no substance left in a remedy is accepted as true, then how can someone be harmed by a small amount of sugar, distilled water, or grain alcohol? Homeopaths are criticized for being inconsistent, but the critique is inconsistent as well. Criticalobservation (talk) 06:48, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
Brunton you are right about there not being much reliable literature. This is the brunt of the criticism of homeopathy. No one really knows why it works. The action is on the immune system which isn't hard to understand but explaining it is pretty difficult especially since there is considerable debate about how the immune system itself functions. Criticalobservation (talk) 10:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
I haven't noticed critics of homoeopathy suggesting that it causes adverse effects (other than the possible results of not seeking proper medical attention, of course). On the other hand, homoeopaths sometimes do. The post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy cuts both ways. Brunton (talk) 08:41, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
The citations about homeopathic practitioners recommending against other medical treatments reference a study of medically licensed and non-licensed homeopathic practitioners in England. The whole point was that the questionable recommendations came from the non-licensed practioners. I have noticed your concern about seeking conventional medical attention and that concern is well founded. Homeopathy can't cure a broken arm, but it can help with the discomfort. The idea of a homeopath counseling against vaccinations is absurd; the underlying principles are identical. I also think you misunderstood the citation you used from the British hospital study. It is an excellent reference, but the "aggravation" described as an adverse response is actually an anticipated and desired response that indicates that the correct remedy was used. The point was that the patients may not see it that way. Criticalobservation (talk) 10:15, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
The underlying principles of vaccination and homoeopathy are not the same, and if "the idea of a homeopath counseling against vaccinations is absurd" then it would appear that there are an awful lot of absurd homoeopaths out there.
The adverse events reported in that paper were not all "aggravations": "Thirteen patients (11%) reported an adverse event even though 5 of those were patients who also reported an aggravation followed by an overall improvement of their symptoms"; there were also 31 patients twho reported entirely new symptoms. 12:29, 30 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Brunton (talk • contribs) Not sure why that happened - it added the time and date when I signed but not my username. Brunton (talk) 12:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
Oh, so they do - link. Not sure how I was getting only the front and back covers, thanks. - Eldereft (cont.) 17:06, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
Because there is a map volume and a text volume, the latter of which does not display. meh. - Eldereft (cont.) 17:35, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
I found a physical instantiation of the book - WHO does not so much actually measure prevalence as it does a few metrics like existence of regulations and professional associations which are assumed to correlate to use. Not a terrible assumption, and apparently the data we want do not exist for many countries, but not what I was hoping. It does say that homeopathy is significantly more utilized in rich countries than poor, but the sample is so heterogeneous that I would rather just list survey numbers for a few relevant cases. Oh well, back to the source mill. - Eldereft (cont.) 19:24, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

Hippocrates

As Hans Adler has noted, the reference given to support Hippocrates's use of homoeopathy doesn't actually mention Hippocrates. The claim that homoeopathy goes back to Hippocrates is a fairly common one, but I can't find much in the way of hard evidence for it. I've found references to Hippocrates mentioning something that looks a bit like the principle of "like cures like", but not to him actually using the principle. There's some discussion of this, including the relevant texts from Hippocrates, here, along with some analysis of the claim. Brunton (talk) 08:29, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

I don't think we need an extended discussion about whether homeopathy was anticipated by Hippocrates and Paracelsus, or only by Paracelsus. In the interest of encyclopedic brevity I have simply removed Hippocrates. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:24, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Hahnemann mentioned Hippocrates and gave examples of its use by him, so I wish we can add Hippocrates' name there, but I'd like to get consensus here first.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 13:41, 28 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
Then you need to find sources for that. But note, this would justify the article saying that Hahnemann cited Hippocrates but not necessarily that Hippocrates used the principles himself. Brunton (talk) 14:25, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Yes, sources for Hahnemann invoking Hippocrates as a precursor should be easy to find, but we need it from somebody focused on Hippocrates or the history of medicine in general, not on homeopathy. An alternative would be to make the statement weaker and use what Hahnemann says. --Hans Adler (talk) 15:47, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

Hippocrates

There are lotsa webpages/websites which mention Hippocrates and his use of similars, but can someone find a reliable source for it (I don't have the time)?-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 16:39, 30 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))

I found an encyclopedia from the 1830s that places homeopathy and "Hippocratic medicine" in opposition to each other.

[13] Fences and windows (talk) 23:01, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Here are the works of Hippocrates. The intro mentions homeopathy and similia etc., but I can't find the passage in his actual writing using search terms... [14] Fences and windows (talk) 23:08, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
Here's a review of the relevant part of the Hippocratic Corpus, "Places in Man": http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2000/2000-02-24.html. It is apparent that "Hippocrates" wasn't the author of any statements about similars; the "Hippocratic Corpus" was written by many authors, and this one seems earlier, less focussed and less sophisticated than some others. Hahnemann's interpretation is also disputed. This isn't a 'reliable source' as such, but it is a lucid description of why Hahnemann may have been wrong in his reading of Places in Man: http://www.skepsis.nl/homeopat.html. A reference to Hahnemann believing that Hippocrates had foreshadowed him might be OK, but any statement to the effect that Hippocrates applied principles of homeopathy would be incorrect. Fences and windows (talk) 23:47, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Citation format

Hans has been converting to use the citation template vice the cite template. Either way works, but some words of caution are in order. We should agree which form we'll use rather than just bashing away independently. Mixing first/last with author doesn't cut it. To generate Vancouver citations (as normal for biomedical articles) the | author=Smith JD, Jones AB| form is better, as this is what the pmid matches against. Several of the cites currently have "and" between names. These should go. LeadSongDog (talk) 18:51, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

I am working on a script to do this automatically. It's much easier to convert "cite X" to "citation" rather than the other way round (because otherwise the script would have to guess the type of the reference), so that's what I am doing. I can try to remove the "and" with the script, it seems that citation bot doesn't touch it. Could you explain what you mean when you say pmid matches against author? Is this about some automatic generation or verification of citations? If it gets technical, perhaps we can continue on my or your talk page and leave a pointer here. Thanks. --Hans Adler (talk) 00:23, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Consider PMID 8255290. Checking the PMID 8255290 shows the authors as "Hirst SJ, Hayes NA, Burridge J, Pearce FL, Foreman JC." This author format is what citationbot checks against. Similarly it looks for a title match against "Human basophil degranulation is not triggered by very dilute antiserum against human IgE." These forms are as recommended in the uniform style guidelines for biomedical journals, so we normally use them on biomedical articles on WP to simplify checking references. The {{citation}} template will happily take the author= parameter filled out this way instead of last1=|first1=|last2=|first2= and so on, rendering the desired result. Likewise, using Diberri's template filler the same result is achieved because it populates the template from the NLM database if given a pmid or other index key.LeadSongDog (talk) 22:36, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
OK, thanks. In the first version of the script I wasn't going to translate between author= and firstn=/lastn= anyway, so there shouldn't be a problem. This doesn't sound as if there are related difficulties that I need to take into account. --Hans Adler (talk) 23:59, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Conversion mostly done

My script has reached the stage where it is actually useful, and I have run this article through it. Now all citations uniformly use the "citation" templates. The only exception is a court case that (still) uses the "cite court" template. I believe that apart from a few misspelled tags which were fixed by the script (resulting in additional information now being displayed as intended) the only difference is that many full stops are now missing at the ends of the citations, and the "retrieved" information is now separated with a full stop from the rest of the citation, rather than with a comma. I can add the missing full stops tomorrow using the script. Please let me know if there are any problems. The page is now 8 KB bigger because I added additional spaces so the references are easier to read in the source code. If anyone feels that this isn't an improvement I can remove the spaces.

Warning: When I tried to look at the diff, it froze my browser (Firefox 3.0.7 on Windows). --Hans Adler (talk) 02:02, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Update: LeadSongDog has just made me furious by reverting without actually making a single objection. The edit summary was "undo - not right yet, please sandbox and check", apparently guessing that I had not checked. I appreciate any and all actual information about problems after my change that were not present in the article before my change. Everybody, please compare the two versions and see if you have any objections. I will take them into account as long as they are technically feasible and not contradictory with each other or the purpose of having a single citation style in the article. Thank you. --Hans Adler (talk) 08:49, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

First off - my apology. I was editing too late at night when I came across Hans' change. Having just spent a long time fixing another disaster I didn't have sufficient reserves of patience to go through every line of this massive diff and I failed to expand here on my reason for reverting.
The specific problem that triggered my reaction was, as Hans has already spotted, the conversion of cite web parameters, which are often problematic. The {{cite web}} "title" and "work" parameters do not cleanly map to single parameters on the {{citation}} template, leading to results such as contribution=World Health Organization in the reverted edit.
In massive changes like this it's advisable to roll them out by small steps when possible. I would suggest separate edits for each section of the article. That way we'd avoid the crashing browsers and edit conflicts on correcting any problem details. Theres no imperative to bundle them all into one edit. LeadSongDog (talk) 13:54, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
I still don't understand why this scrutiny is necessary when careful visual inspection of the article before and after the change shows that everything went according to plan, with no visible changes other than the extremely minor expected ones. (The trick for thorough comparison is to have both versions open simultaneously in separate tags and to make sure that they are at exactly the same position. Then by switching tabs one easily sees all changes other than perhaps missing or added full stops.)
Since I must copy and paste between my browser and the script, doing it per section seems quite inconvenient and error prone. How about doing things in the following steps instead, to maximise transparency:
  • Pretty-printing: All templates are formatted as in the first run of my script (see link above), but otherwise the templates themselves and their parameters remain completely unchanged. This creates a massive diff that may still crash a browser, but the change is obviously harmless.
  • Conversion of all "cite journal" templates, making only the necessary changes without any normalisation. Each converted template will create only one line in the diff.
  • Conversion of all other "cite X" templates, again making only the necessary changes without any normalisation. Since some parameters must be renamed, a typical converted template will create about 1–3 lines in the diff.
  • Normalisation of parameter names. If I normalise "last1" -> "last" and "first1" -> "first", rather than the other way round as I did in the previous run, the diff should be of manageable size.
Another necessary step, which can happen at any time after the pretty-printing, is manual correction of defective references. Here are some seriously wrong things that I may actually fix before the first run: wrong template ("cite web") for the WHO study and Encyclopedia "Brittanica", bogus parameters for National Science Board indicators, one use of "Harvard reference" template.
Would this sequence be acceptable to you, or do you object to the pretty-printing because you can't check it? --Hans Adler (talk) 15:34, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
That seems like a very reasonable approach. As discussed above, I'd prefer to adhere to the usual biomedical article approach of pubmed style citation, with author lists shown as author=Jones AB, Smith CD, Gold EF. rather than the last1 first1 etc style, mostly for compatibility with diberri's tool and with citation bot. I don't think that's a stopper in any case, it can be done afterwards. With regards to the WHO review, I've found ISBN 9241545488 treats the pdf as a book, which might be more straightforward to use than the more transient form of the webpage.LeadSongDog (talk) 16:06, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
Ignore that last bit, I see you already found it.LeadSongDog (talk) 16:11, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
Once the references are pretty-printed, it's straightforward for a script to translate them into your preferred format. (Unfortunately it's not clear to me how to easily integrate this function into my current script, as I am using sophisticated but slightly inflexible parser support [15].) It's probably best to translate references that have already separated the authors as last=Jones AB|last2=Smith CD|last3=Gold EF. This preserves the maximal possible amount of information while making things look like the output of diberri's tool. I am sure citation bot understands this format as well. (Otherwise it would need fixing.)
I will do the first (pretty-printing) step when I get home from work. --Hans Adler (talk) 16:27, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
Refs 56 and 103 are the same paper. Fences and windows (talk) 18:28, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
Done. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:20, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
I have done the first (pretty-printing) step now. I will leave a day or so before doing the next one. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:20, 24 March 2009 (UTC)
Now I have finished the second and third steps. I have also given the references to the Organon a more uniform structure and made numerous other little changes by hand. --Hans Adler (talk) 23:00, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Author names

Unfortunately there seems to be no way to change the separator between authors from ";" to ",". As a result, we have a mixture between both styles. Since there is a comma after the authors list, a semicolon doesn't seem to make sense here. I propose to adapt my script to convert all citations of the type "author1=Smith, Adam|author2=Jones, Bede" or "last1=Smith|first1=Adam|last2=Jones|first2=Bede" into references of the type "authors=Smith A, Jones B". Is that OK for everybody?

Fine by me. There is no need to pluralize, though, as "author=Smith A, Jones B" works just the same. With this approach pipetricks will be needed to link an author, e.g. "authors=Smith A, Jones B". LeadSongDog come howl 18:32, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
Oh, sh.., I forgot about the author links. That's why I originally decided not to do this. I believe some documentation for the citation templates says explicitly that we shouldn't do, it although I can't find it right now. I guess that the Harvard system (which we are currently not using here) is broken otherwise, and I don't know what else may be affected. Possibly some bots or other tools. Unfortunately the semicolons seem to be hardcoded in Template:Citation/core. In connection with the comma as standard separator between the author list and the rest this is plain weird. I see I'll have to think about this a little longer. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:39, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Quackery

I think we can have that word lower down instead of in the Lead. I also want to know what is wrong with the WHO doc about the qualifications for Homeopathy?-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 03:36, 23 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))

"Quackery" is an incredibly loaded word in the United States and it has been used as grounds for sending folks to jail for fraud. The word is also colloquial American English and its use should be clarified. "Pseudoscience" is at least a Latin derivative. As a descriptor in the lead it would make sense to explain the justification for the use of the word "quackery." That would fulfill the NPOV objective.Criticalobservation (talk) 08:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
Been there and done that. We have discussed this issue for ages and it's staying there. You have previously written an edit summary with these false words: "On the Talk Pg., there's been consensus to avoid using quackery in the lead,...".[16] That's not true. Please read the talk page archives. -- Fyslee (talk) 04:25, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
If by "what is wrong with the WHO doc...", you are referring to the removal of the phrase "although licenses and professional qualifications are required in most countries" which you keep tagging onto the end of the third paragraph of the lead, virtually the same phrase is included in its proper place at the end of the second paragraph, using a WHO document as its source. We don't need it in the lead twice, and (as has already been noted by Fences and windows) it is a non-sequitur where you are adding it. Brunton (talk) 09:30, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
It is relevant as an oxymoron. I want to neutralize the, 'pseudoscience and quackery' sentence, since y'all don't wanna remove it-any suggestions as to how we can neutralize it? Anyone and everyone is welcome to answer the question.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 16:39, 23 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
With no desire in getting into an argument about this topic, but NPOV does not mean we "neutralize" statements. The vast majority of sources state that it is quackery and pseudoscience. That's neutral and does not give weight to a minority opinion.SciMedKnowledge (talk) 17:07, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Another option would be to use a direct quote - "...in the words of a 1998 medical review, as "placebo therapy at best and quackery at worst".[1]" Tim Vickers (talk) 18:40, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
That used to be in the lead after "pseudoscience or quackery", but it seemed a bit excessive to have both so I removed it. Perhaps it should be reinstated at the appropriate point in the body of the article. Brunton (talk) 20:19, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
It's already there, under the "Medical and scientific analysis" section. --Enric Naval (talk) 08:31, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Even then it's still cherry-picking. The word "quackery" is sometimes, but not usually, used by the most reliable sources in connection with homeopathy, and the word "pseudoscience" is sometimes (probably more often) used in connection with attempts to justify homeopathy. That's my impression. Now some editors seem to have a different impression. OK. The proper thing would be to use those reliable sources which have evaluated what other reliable sources say. We have started discussing one in the thread above. [17] I think it supports my opinion that the pseudoscience/quackery sentence is not representative for informed views of homeopathy and therefore does not belong in the lede.
Most papers using the word "quackery" do so in a guarded way ("a quackery with a difference"), as one of two extremes where we would never use the other extreme in this article ("quackery or a key to the future of medicine?"), or in a general attack on everything the author doesn't like ("clinical trial of homeopathy and an analysis of lunar phases and postoperative outcome", even better Medical quackery in Nigeria, where we can see the foam around the author's mouth). The sentence in Ernst & Pittler 1998 seems to be an exception. --Hans Adler (talk) 19:31, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
It appears that there are still editors here who fail to acknowledge the obvious fact that diverting sick people from getting real medical attention is a deadly serious business. Why should we continue to justify this behaviour?LeadSongDog (talk) 20:18, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
One of the reasons I'd like to delete "quackery" is that we can show more effectively that homeopathy is bunkum by avoiding words that are likely to provoke emotional reactions in the reader. If someone is inclined toward alt med stuff then they're going to be sensitive to words like that and may be turned off by the article. We then show how homeopathy uses "remedies" that are indistinguishable from water, there's no evidence for effectiveness beyond a placebo, and so on. If they have half a brain they can figure out that it's nonsense based on objective evidence, but we have to avoid building emotional walls that will keep the reader from reaching that evidence. And if they don't have half a brain it won't help to use the q-word anyway. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 20:26, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Exactly. Apart from that, Wikipedia is not the place to change the real world, especially not in respects that are obviously immune to change. Some patients will always lose faith in their physicians and start looking for alternatives. Less in times of great medical advances such as the discovery of antibiotics, more in times when medical insurance pays for machines and medication but not for taking time to talk to the patient. Attacking CAM in general, or any particular flavour of CAM, is the laziest and least effective way of attacking this problem. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:57, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Agreed, it's a place to describe the real world, not to change it. But in the real world homoeopathy is widely regarded as pseudoscience or quackery. Brunton (talk) 21:49, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
The articles on Osteopathy, Chiropractic, Naturopathy and Dentistry don't have the word quackery although there are good sources for it, so can we do something likewise here (or at least tag something to that sentence)?-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 12:43, 25 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
Naturopathy does, last I looked, actually. And you might be a little more convincing if you had left out dentistry. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 06:41, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
You may have missed this: Dentistry came in when some people argued with the large number of hits for homeopathy+quackery are an argument. Turns out there are more for dentistry+quackery. This led to this edit, with which I don't agree, even though I first brought dentistry up in this context. You are right though, the statement would have been more convincing without dentistry. --Hans Adler (talk) 12:58, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
The subtlety in this debate is that it is more than just a numbers game of hits for "therapy+quackery". The example of dentistry very well illustrates this; the articles don't criticise dentistry per se as quackery, but highlight the problem of quackery within dentistry, both historically and in the present day. Because I thought that this issue was actually notable in the history of dentistry, I made that edit. So - look at what the articles say, not how many there are. Fences and windows (talk) 18:01, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
That was exactly my point. As I explained above [18], almost all papers that use the word "quackery" in relation with homeopathy either do so in a guarded way or are not reliable. I feel that I never got a proper response. The next thing that happened was that LeadSongDog changed the topic with an emotional appeal to a morals. What has not happened was that anyone has either shot down the review that clearly says it's not all that common to call homeopathy "quackery", or offered another of similar quality that cameo the opposite conclusion. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:46, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
That's pretty rich. In case you forgot, my actual words are legible just above. No need to invent new meanings.LeadSongDog come howl 21:56, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
Homeopaths themselves often write that traditional medics believe that homeopathy is quackery, but I won't go down that avenue for now. Some sources. This letter in Canadian Family Physician calls homeopathy quackery directly: [19]; This letters column in Salon uses the claim directly: [20]; LA Times article reports that health advocates regard homeopathy as quackery: [21]; PZ Myers has called it "quackery without scruples": [22] (blog, but a notable one); Edzard Ernst directly accused Boots of selling quack medicine due to them selling homeopathic remedies: [23]; David Gorksi/Orac has called it quackery in his notable Respectful Insolence blog: [24]; Ben Goldacre calls it quackery: [25]; Robin McKie calls in quackery in the Observer: [26]; Susan Blackmore calls it quackery: [27]. More to come... Fences and windows (talk) 22:38, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
OK, so you have several letters to the editor. I am not going to pay for the LA Times archive, but the sentence in the abstract ("This alarms consumer health advocates, who contend that homeopathy is quackery repackaged in a New Age veneer.") doesn't strike me as particularly insightful. Perhaps homeopathy is New Age in the US, but certainly not in Europe. And "consumer health advocates" might well be referring only to people like Stephen Barrett. PZ Myers is an associate professor of biology and made the statement in his blog, not in a peer-reviewed paper. Edzard Ernst doesn't help in this context because my point is that basically he is the only qualified expert who makes the quackery claim with the full weight of his qualification. The remaining references are similarly unconvincing. --Hans Adler (talk) 14:36, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Rose Shapiro includes it in an article on quack therapies: [28]; headline of article by Polly Toynbee dubs it quackery: [29]; Ben Goldacre includes homeopathy in "degrees in quackery": [30]; James Randi calls it quackery: [31] [32]; Dominic Lawson lumps homeopathy in with quackery: [33] ; homeopathy alluded to as being called quackery by conventional doctors in NYT: [34] [35]; homeopathy seen as quackery by medical establishment: [36]; Damian Thompson calls it quackery in the Daily Telegraph [37] [38]; "prevailing view of Western medicine" reported as considering homeopathy to be "near quackery" [39]; Ross Clark in the Telegraph refers to diet pills, homeopathy and aromatherapy directly before saying "Quackery pays": [40]. By way of dissent, a piece in JRSM says "Supporters of CAM have good reason to object to the term ‘quackery’ being linked in any way with such practices as homeopathy, osteopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture and herbalism" [41]. This is not about whether homeopathy is actually quackery, it is about whether a notable criticism in the media and from scientists and medics is that homeopathy is quackery. I don't think mentioning this fairly prominently is giving undue weight considering the number of sources that report this belief. Fences and windows (talk) 00:12, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for taking my concern seriously. I will have a look at these references tomorrow and see if they convince me. The chances don't seem to be all that bad. --Hans Adler (talk) 01:38, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
This second batch contains some very interesting sources. "The British medical establishment has responded with demands for curbing what it calls quackery." [42] Another article has interesting background information that may be useful for the article, but basically the author's opinion about homeopathy/quackery. [43]
OK, you have addressed the question whether there is notable criticism of homeopathy as quackery, from various sides. I have been contesting the two following, specific points:
  • Should the word "quackery" be mentioned in the lede?
  • Is it so obviously true that homeopathy is quackery that we, as Wikipedia, can cite the quackery claims in a way that implicitly endorses them, as opposed to simply reporting them?
I am now prepared to concede the first. I still think it's not wise to mention the word, but perhaps that's not worth pursuing. But I believe the second point still stands. Whenever someone tries to put in "Some call it quackery although ..." they are reverted, and correctly so because that would be a way of taking a position about the claim. However, we are currently saying "Some call it quackery because ...", which is equally problematic because it takes the opposite position. And IMO to make such a claim we would need WP:MEDRS quality references to establish that this is in fact scientific consensus. However, Edzard Ernst seems to be the only expert who provides us with sources of sufficient quality. Even though he is the only UK professor of CAM, I doubt that his opinion alone makes a consensus. --Hans Adler (talk) 14:36, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
WP:MEDRS focusses on medical facts, not medical opinion. As quackery isn't a very scientific word, it isn't used very much in the scientific or medical literature. It's a colloquial term. Note this: "the high-quality popular press can be a good source for social, biographical, current-affairs and historical information in a medical article". So the articles I sourced (mostly from the British press, as I'm most familar with it) are relevant, as this is a social view of the scientific community. We can't just say "scientists say homeopathy is quackery", but we can say "homeopathy has been commonly labelled as quackery by journalists and mainstream scientists"[refs], or something along those lines. We could even add something like "but homeopaths and some other medical professionals reject this label".[refs] Fences and windows (talk) 19:05, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
I agree that we can say something like this, although your concrete formulation doesn't work for me, because it makes a possibly unverifiable claim about some non-homeopathic medical professionals rejecting the quackery label for homeopathy and gives the (incorrect, in my opinion) impression that there is some kind of consensus that the label fits, which is shared by all but homeopaths and a few others. I am sure this is a very touchy topic for homeopathy fans, and has been from its inception, so we really need to get all facts and nuances right. I will think about a concrete proposal. One problem is that I see the stylistic need for some framing of the quackery accusation, and this seems hard to do without introducing a POV. --Hans Adler (talk) 19:20, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
My wording suggestion was off-the-cuff. The JRSM piece is by a mainstream medical historian, Irvine Loudon, who was a notable GP before that. I'll look for some more views along the same lines from non-homeopaths. Fences and windows (talk) 20:21, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
"It is not quackery because it hides nothing; its principles, its mode of operation, its remedies are all known to the world". Homeopathy: Nature's Healing Law by M. L. Scott [44] (obviously a homeopath); press release about scientists who used homeopathy, including Darwin (peace be with him), though it is not NPOV as it is about a book by Dana Ullmann: [45]. I'm having trouble coming up with much. Fences and windows (talk) 21:50, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
The stuff about Darwin has been dealt with ad nauseam. Probably best brought together in Charles Darwin and Homeopathy and The Homeopathic Revolution by Dana Ullman: A Review on the Quackometer blog. Ullman's claims have also been discussed on various talk pages on Wikipedia, for example on the one for the James Manby Gully article. Briefly, if you want to know what Darwin thought of homoeopathy, try this letter. Brunton (talk) 14:57, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Doesn't mince his words. "You speak about Homœopathy; which is a subject which makes me more wrath, even than does Clair-voyance: clairvoyance so transcends belief, that one's ordinary faculties are put out of question, but in Homœopathy common sense & common observation come into play, & both these must go to the Dogs, if the infinetesimal doses have any effect whatever". I didn't expect those claims to have much veracity! Fences and windows (talk) 21:38, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Ah, here's a Google books view of the book by Ullman and Fisher, which is basically a compendium of famous people, including scientists, who have used homeopathy: [46]. Another "anti": "Dr Evan Harris, of the all-party parliamentary malaria group, said: 'This sort of outrageous quackery is unacceptable. Vulnerable people are being duped into handing over cash for useless remedies and are having their health put at risk through grossly inadequate advice. People need to consider homeopathy in the same way as the treat faith-healing and witchcraft - that is not to risk their life or health on it." [47] He's an MP and a former medical doctor. And ""Homeopathy gets bigger all the time and has a lot of staunch defenders," says [William] Helfand. "They tell me I have no right" to include homeopathy as quackery". He's a medical historian[48]. Copy of article here. Indian homeopaths didn't like the Goa Medical Council calling them quacks: [49]. Time magazine in 1940 said "An aura of quackery surrounded homeopathy until some 20 years ago, when Founder Hahnemann was given his historic due by no less a personage than Sir William Osler".[50] Fences and windows (talk) 22:29, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Let's delete "quackery", certainly from the lead if not from the article itself. Yes I'm aware that there are plenty of sources for the term. But one of the most basic rules of effective writing is "show, don't tell." Our articles on Pol Pot and Idi Amin don't call them "bloodthirsty tyrants" or the like despite the fact that we could find plenty of sources applying such terms to these folks. We simply relate their horrid deeds and our readers naturally come to that conclusion. Likewise, for homeopathy we need only relate the facts as clearly as possible -- the "remedies" contain none of the original ingredients, there is no clinical evidence that they are effective, and so on -- and our readers will come to the conclusion that homeopathy is bunk. And if a reader is such a brainless New Age moron that they still think magic water will cure disease then they would be unreachable with the quackery label anyway. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 21:21, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

That argument may sound convincing to you, but it has no basis in the guidelines and policies which govern the writing of this encyclopedia, which is deliberately required to be written differently than other sources and other encyclopedias. This is Wikipedia.
Seriously now, please consider these facts: it's a practice that is very widely used; has been used for a long time; is excepted from the legal regulations that require all other drugs to be tested for proof of efficacy and safety; it is based on "laws" that are not laws at all, but are just the confabulations of a rather odd and failed doctor who acted in ignorance based on a reaction he experienced, caused by his own (unknown to himself) allergy to quinine, IOW his reaction wasn't typical, and was thus useless and misleading as the basis of a theory; it has no evidence of any biological effects beyond any weak and subjective placebo effects; it violates many basic laws of biology, physics, and pathology; it has the largest profit margin per invested dollar of any product in the world, largely because of a lack of developmental research directed at proving efficacy, combined with a very small start base of an active ingredient; ad libitum....
Now please name ANY candidate that is MORE worthy of being described as quackery and pseudoscience. I can think of no other. It is the penultimate classic example.
No, you'll have to find better arguments based in our policies here. You not only want to delete it from the LEAD, but from the article??? Is that a joke? No, it needs its own section, plus continued mention in the LEAD. Note that this article has no criticism section, which is rather odd for a topic that is most notable because of the criticisms leveled against it. The weight of the article is twisted in the wrong direction and violates how we are supposed to deal with FRINGE topics. This article needs a section entitled Homeopathy#Labeled_as_quackery_and_pseudoscience. According to principles layed out in the WP:PSCI ArbCom decision, homeopathy is clearly an "Obvious pseudoscience" and "Generally considered pseudoscience", just as much so as astrology, and the article should make that very clear. It is already categorized as pseudoscience, and properly so. The article shouldn't be any less clear than the categorization.
The way to solve this debate is to strengthen the documentation for its being considered a form of pseudoscientific quackery, not to weaken it. Editors who have previously tried to violate our policies by weakening this are already banned, and we don't need more of the same. -- Fyslee (talk) 02:35, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


From the Compact Oxford Dictionary:quack Noun 1) an unqualified person who dishonestly claims to have medical knowledge. 2)Brit. informal doctor --Derivatives quackery noun. --Origin abbreviation of earlier quacksalver, from Dutch, probably from obsolete quacken 'prattle' + salf 'salve'. Personally, I suspect that "quacksalver" may also be related to quicksilver, an old term for mercury, which was, throughout much of the 19th century promoted in the English speaking world as a cure-all. (If someone wants a reference, I'll go hunt one down.) Criticalobservation (talk) 08:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

A number of references, especially from the current debates in England related to the scientific community's outspoken attacks on Prince Charles (described as the "Prince of Quacks") and his promotion of homeopathy (labeled as pseudoscience and quackery), and to the dropping of "pseudoscience degrees" (often related to homeopathy) from universities, is found here: Alternative medicine critics . -- Fyslee (talk) 02:43, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Interesting, since his mother's royal physician is a respected homeopath, Peter Fisher. Criticalobservation (talk) 08:10, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
The opinion of the royal family on homeopathy is one thing; the opinion of the mainstream scientific and medical communities is quite another. Fences and windows (talk) 18:08, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Homeopathy isn't practised in Europe alone

Homeopathy isn't practised in Europe alone, so I've made some additions in the last section. Please feel free to change the words, if you don't like it, but don't delete it-the reader should know Homeopathy isn't practised in Europe alone!-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 12:38, 25 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))

It seems to have been copied and pasted from here, or one of the other sites that uses Citizendium as a source. It probably goes into too much detail (there is, as is indicated at the start of the section you pasted it into, a separate article on Regulation and prevalence of homeopathy), and contains a certain amount of irrelevant information (for example, the phrase about regulation of "conventional, western medical education" in India). Brunton (talk) 14:57, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, if it's copy-pasted, I'm going to revert. Cannae use plagiarism. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:02, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
In addition, almost all of the material added about homoeopathy outside Europe is unsupported by references. The only references added are articles about belief in CAM in the among Dutch GPs (Knipschild et al. 1990), and CAM in Europe (Fisher et al 1994), and two references to Indian sites, one of which merely went to the homepage of the Medical Council of India which has no information on it about homoeopathy, and the other of which, to the Department of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy of the Indian Health Ministry, does not support all of the contentions in the sentence it appears to support. Brunton (talk) 15:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
I've given him a polite warning about Copyvio - it's not actually the first time he did this. =/ Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 15:31, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

[rant removed] Note, the so-called "irrelevant details" you are criticizing here may not be relevant to you but to international users they are important in order to understand the different conditions, standards and regulations (or lack thereof) in different countries; [rant removed] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.130.154.212 (talk) 02:44, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

This section of the article is about regulation and prevelance of homoeopathy; the information about regulation of "conventional, western medical education" is therefore irrelevant. Brunton (talk) 08:55, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
The citizendium article in homeopathy follows Citizendium rules about sources. The article here follows wikipedia rules about sources. Please repeat the edit with sources that follow wikipedia rules. (Also, please don't rant about how good Citizendium is and how evil Wikipedia is, that's just unhelpful) --Enric Naval (talk) 03:25, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

Dear Enric Naval; is not a bit hypocritical of you to patronizingly admonish me for allegedly ranting when your very admonishment is a rant in itself? No matter, my point has been made; you and user brunton have had to read it.

However, you have attributed words to me that I never wrote; this is pathetic. I never called wikipedia "evil" nor have I yet made the judgment that Citizendium is "good"; simply that their (Citizendium's) article on homeopathy seems to be superior to the opinionated self-righteous diatribe that is interspersed in the wikipedia article on homeopathy. It is amazingly egotistical to make the leap that a criticism of the 'sacred' wikipedia homeopathy article is an attack on the entire body of articles that exist on wikipedia, and hence an attribution that wikipedia is "evil". What weak logic and poor reasoning; I guess this exposes one the underlying causes of the poor quality of this homeopathy article; you can draw your own conclusions as to what I mean by that. You should follow your own practice and not engage in any further illogical and slanderous rants; rants that are quite unhelpful, didn't you know?

[Constructive Criticism] You should understand that I am not convinced about the efficacy of homeopathy, but that is not the point. The actual point is that the article is so opinionated (against homeopathy) and is somewhat Eurocentric that it makes one question the credibility of the article. Therefore from my perspective this article has failed; it has not provided me with the information I required (i.e. in a dispassionate, consistent and professional manner) and instead subjected me to have wade through nasty, time-wasting back and forth contradictory statements between pro and anti homeopathy contributors in the article. Which forces readers like me, who do not have bone in this childish debate, to look for alternative sources of info, such as Citizendium (the link to which was so graciously provided by user brunton) or google. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.130.154.212 (talk) 04:40, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

66.130.154.212, the Citizendium approach will not result in a better article. If you want to read about homeopathy from the viewpoint of homeopaths it is quite good, as it was substantially contributed to by Dana Ullmann and other homeopaths. Don't confuse its dispassionate tone for a lack of bias! There is abundant special pleading, like the paragraph beginning "Water is not simply a collection of molecules of H2O", which makes special pleading for the idea of the memory of water. The overview is also a biased view, using weasel wording to downplay science. The CZ article does not back up controversial claims with reliable sources. All Wikipedia pages should be dispassionate (which it has been criticed for!) and based on reliable sources, not opinion. We deliberately avoid the kind of editorialising seen on CZ. If you want to improve this article on Wikipedia, please discuss its demerits here without insulting it or its editors. It probably does need improvement for flow and clarity. Fences and windows (talk) 18:56, 27 March 2009 (UTC)
Off-topic: I just love how the first post in their talk page is a huge rant by a stablished user about how Dana is removing negative info from the article. This is what I love about open wikis, you get to be aware of all the POV fights going on behind the scenes (by the way, they replaced the Paracelsus text at "Homeopathy", but they forgot to add it to "History of Homeopathy", so now the articles are out of sync). --Enric Naval (talk) 12:40, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
Some parts of the CZ article are good and Wikipedia could benefit from considering those bits. On the other hand their "Scientific basis of homeopathy" section is ghastly, with a lot of cargo cult ramblings about isotopes and such. The strangely-titled "Overview" section is an all-purpose apologia for implausible phenomena. I think both the CZ and WP articles are not very well written and could use some polishing up. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 14:26, 31 March 2009 (UTC)
Their coverage of history of homeopathy seems to be much better, although I fear that it's full of inaccuracies, like the Hippocrates thing found by Fences and Windows. (knowing that Dana has been involved in it, I actually expected this sort of thing happening :P ) --Enric Naval (talk) 02:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Clinical evidence

Clinical evidence is the evidence doctors see in their clinics or at the bed-side. Homeopaths see that their treatment does produce results. The BHA studies are even more supportive of that. Can we remove the word, 'Clinical evidence' from the, 'Claims to the......' sentence in the Lead?-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 11:38, 29 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))

No. That's what the sources say. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 11:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
"The BHA studies" fail to take trial quality into account, as has already been noted above. Brunton (talk) 22:07, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Don't the BHA studies meet the WP:MEDRS criteria according to the first table there? Can we insert the BHA studies somewhere here?-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 16:36, 30 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
The same studies are already discussed in the article by reference to published, peer-reviewed analyses, which take study quality into account, rather than the unpublished review from an organisation that, in its own words "exists to promote homeopathy" that you want to insert. The studies are already included, using better sources. Brunton (talk) 08:19, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Citations linking to journal titles, author names, publishers, locations

(This section follows up from User talk:Hans Adler #Homeopathy and overlinking.)

Let's remove internal wikilinks from citations. Citations are supposed to be to external, reliable sources and the wikilinks give an inappropriate visual cue to readers as to which of these citations Wikipedia editors like. Also, the extra blue text is offputting and confusing. So, for example, let's change something like this:

to this:

Eubulides (talk) 07:34, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Bad idea. All the links do is provide access to articles, in this case articles on the authors and publishers. Readers are likely to find it useful to be able to find out more, and to make their own assessment of the value of the sources. . dave souza, talk 10:19, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

So far Eubulides and I have considered the following options:

(1) Wikilinks for authors, journals etc. are used in footnotes wherever the target exists, e.g. currently there would be 12 links to Edzard Ernst.
(2) Such wikilinks are only used in the first instance, e.g. Edzard Ernst would be linked only from footnote 5, but not from footnote 9, 12, 15, 23, 44, 108, 115, 138, 142, 160, 161.
(3) Such wikilinks are not used at all.

My personal preferences are (3), (1), (2) for a big article such as this one, and (2), (1), (3) for an article with few footnotes. The problem with option (2) for this article is that each time someone adds or removes a reference in the lede, other references are also affected. Based on past sloppiness with reference formatting etc. (which makes sense, because you never know if your change will stick, even if it was discussed) I predict that this is not going to work.

We haven't discussed my personal favourite:

(4) Rename "Notes and references" to "References". Add a new section "References" which contains the most important references, and cite them from footnotes using the Harvard citation mechanism. Use option (3) for the "Notes" section and option (2) for the "References" section.

I don't expect to get much support for this, but I thought it's at least worth mentioning. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:08, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

I prefer solutions 2 and 1, in no particular order. Hans, do you mean a Notes section and a References section rather than two reference sections? Verbal chat 12:05, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I am thinking of a Notes section that would in practice contain mostly obscure references that only serve to back a specific claim, i.e. the references that we only have for formal reasons and that a well-written article outsided Wikipedia would omit. The References section would certainly include the Organon, probably ""Homeopaths 'endangering lives' by offering malaria remedies", and certainly not "Water resources, In Encyclopedia of climate and weather". It would be sorted alphabetically, possibly with a few subsections for different types of sources. We are currently listing > 150 sources in more or less random order, and I think this is not optimal. --Hans Adler (talk) 12:41, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Why should anyone's personal preferences enter the discussion? Let's just follow the lead of WP's best articles in medicine, particularly ones promoted recently. What would it take to get through FAR? See Wikipedia:Featured_Article#Health_and_medicine for a list.LeadSongDog come howl 13:11, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I am not sure that I fully understand your comment. It's hard to check in an existing article whether it follows (1) or (2). Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany looks very similar to what I proposed as (4), only they seem to have a clear rule that the References section is for books. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:53, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Asperger syndrome is a demonstration of the problem with approach (2): Simon Baron-Cohen appears as author in references 29, 44, 45, 49 50, 51, 84, 92, 93. Guess which one has the link. --Hans Adler (talk) 13:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Virtually all the biomedical journal publishers follow the Vancouver guidelines with slight variations. References are listed in order of first occurence. Our hardcore medical articles follow that form. History, religion and literature articles are more associated with the two-level notes-plus-references system, your number 4 (refnamed-harvnb or however we designate it). So perhaps we should ask if this article is to be principally a history, a discussion of the current practice of homeopathy as CAM, or as faith healing. Having made that choice the options narrow down.LeadSongDog come howl 16:59, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
I can't follow you. It sounds as if you are saying that there is an objective correct citation style depending on the nature of this article, which cannot be overridden by the editors because of practical considerations. But surely you can't mean that? If you feel very strongly that you can't live with the citation style that I proposed it would seem enough that you simply say so, rather than accusing me of bringing in improper personal preferences. After all, I have only proposed (4) because I think it's a good solution to the problem that Eubulides objects to the overlinking caused by (1), I object to the inconsistency and unmaintainability caused by (2), and Dave souza objects to the loss of information caused by (3). If you object to (4) because you think it's unworthy of a medical article it's obviously not going to work as a compromise.
Also, if you really feel you have to bring in a veto against (4), I think you have the duty to at least state your position on (1)-(3) and make it clear whether or not you are going to veto one of them as well. Given that I wasn't even going to discuss option (4) unless it got strong support by others (remember? "I don't expect to get much support for this") and that I merely replied to Verbal's question, I don't think you are showing your most constructive side right now. --Hans Adler (talk) 21:13, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
  • Thanks for catching that bug in Asperger syndrome; I fixed it by removing the wikilink in the citation, which was a duplicate of a wikilink in the main text. The fix also removes some other wikilinks (mostly in citations) which had similar problems. It's been a while since someone has audited Asperger syndrome for duplicate or out-of-order wikilinks.
  • Asperger syndrome uses another rule, which we can call (5): Omit wikilinks to authors in citations if they're duplicates of wikilinks in the text, and do not use wikilinks to journals, publishers, locations, etc. (5) is a compromise between (2) and (3); I prefer (3), then (5), then (2), and last (1). (4), I think, is overkill for most medical topics, though it works well for nonmedical topics where books are the main source.

Eubulides (talk) 22:09, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

For starters, I was not accusing anyone of anything. Not Hans, not Verbal, and most certainly not Eubulides, whom I regard with a measure of awe. Next, there's nothing improper about having personal preferences, we all do. It's one of the strengths of WP that those preferences play off against each other. Further, I don't believe anyone mentioned a veto. There isn't one, so far as I am aware, for those of us who are not called Jimbo. So please relax, it's just a discussion. In fact, I happen to like 4. I went to great effort to introduce it at World War I. It is not without its problems, as the bugs in harvnb linking still haven't been sorted out. (It doesn't correctly ignore the difference between last=Smith|first=A|year=2009 and last = Smith | first = A | year = 2009, generating different CITEREF tags in each case. This then breaks the internal linkage from the Note to the Reference when someone or somebot makes a whitespace change.) So for technical reasons, I'm avoiding it even where I think it would be appropriate. But if we think that this is a history, philosophy or faith article, then I'd suggest we go with 4 once the technical problem is resolved. If we wish this to be a medicine article then I hold that we should follow the same pattern as those medicine articles that have recently achieved FA status. The example of the Nazi anti-smoking article clearly followed the history track (it too has roots in both article categories). Amongst 1, 2, 3 I agree that 2 is the most robust answer and I would suggest that this rationale should trump the WP:Overlink issue, at least until the content is much more stable. Clear enough?LeadSongDog come howl 22:24, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the explanation and sorry for getting irritated. Could you clarify your penultimate sentence please? Your rationale sounds like something I might have written in favour of (1), so I'm a bit confused. --Hans Adler (talk) 23:07, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
No problem, we all have our days. The penultimate sentence was my observation that Talk:Anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany shows that article to be part of WikiProject History and WikiProject Medicine. The style 4 usage in that article is one that the wiki-historians would be comfortable working with. (Observation: By contrast editors of medical articles sometimes prefer to just provide a pmid or doi and let user:Citation bot or user:Diberri's tool do the rest. I have long argued that improvements to the automation for checking and completing citations is the best way to improve them and so reduce our susceptibility to subtle vandalism that changes page numbers etc.) LeadSongDog come howl 15:43, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Research on medical effectiveness

This section should probably be structured. It reads as a choppy chronological list of meta-analyses. There could be the following sections:

  • History of studies
  • Meta-analyses and systematic reviews
  • The evidence base for different conditions
  • Statements by medical bodies on effectiveness
  • Discussion of the appropriateness of clinical trials - is homeopathy individualised, appropriateness of RCTs for testing homeopathy etc.


Oh, and the title of the section seems awkward. Research on efficacy? Studies of efficacy? Fences and windows (talk) 20:06, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Regulation and prevalence

Why are the prevalence of homeopathy and the regulation coupled? The two subjects don't seem related to me. We could expand the Revival in the late 20th century section using material about prevalence from the article on Regulation and prevalence of homeopathy, and leave the section at the end to discuss only regulatory and legal issues. Fences and windows (talk) 20:06, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Safety of homeopathy

  • This is an interesting discussion of the safety of homeopathy in the JRSM by Brian Kirby: Safety of homeopathic products. It discusses the issue quite well, I think. Fisher et al. replied here, with a response by Kirby included. I'd like to include a reference to this.
  • If anyone has access, this article, Harm in homeopathy: Aggravations, adverse drug events or medication errors? discusses adverse events in homeopathy, from a sympathetic perspective.
  • A related matter is "aggravations". Homeopaths believe that under treatment, symptoms may get worse before they get better, and term this "aggravations", and see them positively, e.g. "homeopathic aggravations are desirable" (The Science of Homeopathy By George Vithoulkas, p228); "Homeopathic physicians see aggravations as a positive sign on the correct route to recovery" (Essentials of complementary and alternative medicine By Wayne B. Jonas, Jeffrey S. Levin, Brian Berman, p168). However, a systematic review by Ernst didn't find evidence to back this belief in aggravations. I think this topic also should be included. Fences and windows (talk) 17:26, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

POV tag

This article is not NPOV and so it ought to have the 'not neutral' tag (unless we rename it, 'Criticism of homeopathy'). No homeopath will accept this article in its present form (and the article is about homeopathy, sigh!).-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 12:13, 25 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))

You are right. I don't. Yes, I am a practicing lay homeopath. Criticalobservation (talk) 08:18, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
Clearly you misunderstand wp:NPOV. It doesn't mean that each side of the dispute thinks that it's neutral. We don't expect the Turkish government to consider the article Armenian genocide as neutral. We expect it to reflect the verifiable, reliable sources. Removing the tag as previously discussed.LeadSongDog (talk) 13:00, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
When you guys police it to disallow a defence, it can never be NPOV. There's absolutely no consensus that this article is NPOV (in fact many will agree that this is an attack piece), so the POV tag is justified.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 13:06, 28 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
Stop adding the POV tag just because you don't like what the article says. You were already told at Talk:Homeopathy#Quackery why the work "quackery" should stay in the lead. --Enric Naval (talk) 13:23, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
This article isn't NPOV and should have that tag. I think we'll need an admin to arbitrate here. I think you guys should be reported for disruptive editing-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 13:28, 28 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
Please read WP:DISPUTE on dispute resolution. Thanks. Fences and windows (talk) 21:06, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Thread at ANI (already closed) --Enric Naval (talk) 21:08, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, exactly. Going asking for admin help is not a good solution here. Fences and windows (talk) 21:32, 28 March 2009 (UTC)
NootherIDAvailable, this article isn't written for homeopaths, nor their customers, but for everyone. It's not a sales brochure written only from the viewpoint of homeopaths. You really need to understand NPOV better. One indication that NPOV is being met is when neither side of the issue is totally happy with ALL the information the article contains, but if they are good Wikipedia editors who understand the policies here, they will be satisfied only when opposing POV have been presented factually without promotion. To be a good editor here, one has to be willing to write for the enemy. Are you willing to do that? It doesn't sound like it. If you aren't willing to do that, or at least allow it, then you will only be a disruption here and will end up getting blocked or banned. Please make up your mind. This isn't your personal website or blog. This is an encyclopedia like no other. It has its own special set of rules, and no one understands them completely since they are constantly evolving to meet new demands. Some of our policies, like those related to Pseudoscience and Fringe subjects, were developed because of the actions of editors like yourself, IOW they were made to enable the canons of Wikipedia to shoot you and other editors like you. Since you seem to be new here, I suggest that you just lay low and stay out of the sights of those canons by not making too many waves. Give it time and you'll likely get the hang of it. Edit other subjects for awhile and learn the ropes. Good luck. -- Fyslee (talk) 05:03, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Fyslee is right. The test of being able to write for the enemy is an excellent one. The ability to do so ensures that the writer understands the opposing point of view, is not taken in by slander, and understands the weaknesses of his or her own argument. The article really doesn't have the perspective of a homeopathic practitioner, rather it is primarily historic and colorful descriptions of the ideology behind the practice. Criticalobservation (talk) 08:27, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
I have written a few thoughts about NPOV here: My POV on NPOV. I hope it will at least help you understand where I'm coming from as an experienced editor here. -- Fyslee (talk) 05:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
All I'm trying to say is that we haven't reached consensus here on removing the tag. I'm sure y'all have noticed that I haven't re-inserted the tag after it was reverted by Enric. I hope we can have the POV tag back in place.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 11:24, 29 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
You appear to be thinking that "we haven't reached consensus" is equal to "it's still not to my liking". --Enric Naval (talk) 16:04, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Consensus means all must agree to the removal of the tag, don't misquote me.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 11:11, 30 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
No, consensus doesn't mean that every single person must agree, just a majority, and even then it needs to take into account wikipedia policies, which have wider consensus. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:52, 30 March 2009 (UTC)
We have this notice on this Page which reads, 'This is a controversial topic that may be under dispute......'. We also had the POV tag on the article from June 2008 to Jan.2009, so I'm merely asking to reinsert the POV tag on the article, because the article's tone hasn't changed since June 2008.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 16:18, 30 March 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))

(unindent) Verbal removed the tag in August 2008;

This started a series of discussions lasting until February 2009:

--Enric Naval (talk) 20:27, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe there was no homeopath to object then, but now I insist the tag be reinserted.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 07:41, 4 April 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
It shouldn't be reinserted. Could you give some policy reasons why the tag should be inserted? Ones that haven't already been dismissed would be helpful. Verbal chat 09:50, 4 April 2009 (UTC)
Lykantrop wrote correctly in the FA nomination that every statement is criticised in this article. He also wrote:-
Well, your answer is pretty much of a good display of the problem. "Homeopathy is a fringe theory" is what you say. That is the problem. You are observing Homeopathy from the view of the critics.
In the most developed countries in the world such as Sweden or Netherlands, homeopathy is officially been used in hospitals along with conventional medicine and also veterinary homeopathy is used there for agricultural animals instead of antibiotics. Yes, the majority of scientific community does not support homeopathy, but a huge part of scientific community and thus reliable scientific sources written by medicine professors and scientists do support it just because its effectivness as well as some developed countries decided to.
"Homeopathy is a fringe theory" is a non-neutral statement as well as this article is. I am absolutely not saying that homeopathy should be put on the same level as the conventional medicine. But to say that the conventional-medicine-view is the objective one and the view of homeopathy is the subjective one is wrong and not neutral. There is a difference between these two of course. But that does not mean that conventional medicine, which is only acknowledged by the majority (that's not 100%), must comment every statement of homeopathy from its "conventional medicine view".
Yes, homeopathy is not accepted by the majority of scientists, and that is why the conventional medicine (which is accepted by the majority) should have a section about criticism in the homeopathy article. But the conventional medicine is not the only accepted medicine. Homeopathy is accepted by a minority of scientific world thus it is not any kind of quackery. And that is why conventional medicine is not the objective one that has the right to say its opinion on everything in the article. Conventional medicine has its reliable sources but homeopathy does have its reliable sources as well. Conventional medicine is not objective just because it has more of them.
You can use this style of writing for some quackery, but not for homeopathy, which is supported by many scientists and some European countires. The problem is that you think that homeopathy is quackery, but that is not neutral.
These arguments are just a lame way how to preventively get rid of criticism.-- LYKANTROP
The homeopathic medical doctors aren't even being allowed to put up a defense (nor take out the criticism), so we ought to have the POV tag here, unless we rename it, 'Criticism of Homeopathy'.
I wouldn't mind if the POV tags are taken off the osteopathy, naturopathy or chiropractic articles, though (as an admin, you can do that, right?).-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 09:33, 5 April 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
I've inserted an 'arbcom' tag on the article, which I believe only they can remove (you skeptics can make corrections, but can't remove the tag).-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 09:59, 5 April 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
You are incorrect that it can only be removed by arbcom, and it isn't even a tag! Please stop inserting this template. The POV tag, or any tag, has not been justified. You may be blocked if you keep inserting this template. Verbal chat 10:06, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
I won't reinsert it, but I'm looking for ways to refer this article to the arbcom. Anyone is welcome to answer how to go about doing it!-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 10:10, 5 April 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
I've now posted it at WP:DR.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 10:46, 5 April 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
That is a page about how to go about dispute resolution. Try posting to WP:FTN with full yet concise description of the problem, supported by evidence. Verbal chat 10:49, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

RfC: Is this article NPOV?

Is this article NPOV?-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 11:13, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I think there's something wrong with this tag, but I hope someone can set it right (I dunno how, I'm sorry).-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 11:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
I've commented out the broken tag. I'd suggest waiting for more input from the two noticeboards you've posted to, and giving some specific problems you have with the page. Verbal chat 11:35, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
This dispute over a POV tag is not helping to improve the article. If you see above, I'm interested in working to improve several of the sections, and this dispute is distracting from efforts to improve the writing and expand the content. In my view, we need to improve the flow of many of the sections, to expand the information about prevalence and regulation, reorganise the effectiveness section and add a Proposed mechanism section. I'd prefer editors' efforts to be directed into this instead of this fruitless discussion. Fences and windows (talk) 20:09, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Arbitration_enforcement#NoOtherIDAvailable

NOTE: User:NootherIDAvailable has been indef banned as a sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I hate to do this, but I think this needs sorted. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 18:28, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

references 1

The references with one line for each part of the ref makes editing of this page almost impossible. Someone needs to take the times to condense these. Not other GA / FA does this that I have seen.--Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:09, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Fixed the heading so as not to confuse things. We can't have two identical headings. Now....what do you mean? Please explain. Is there something different with the references section in this article than you find in other references sections on other articles? Or is this about references temlates with lots of lines in each reference. That's easy to fix. I'll take a look. -- Fyslee (talk) 06:00, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
I gave it a try and discovered that the whole article is filled with these weird ref formats. It looks like a bot must have done it. It does indeed make editing difficult. That bot needs to be tarred and feathered and then lit on fire! Whoever did this, please undo it. -- Fyslee (talk) 06:11, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
Can someone explain what the difficulty is with this approach? It is certainly easier for humans to read the wikitext when it is one line per field. Bots don't care. Many complex templates' documentation show usage broken one line per field: see Template:Citation/doc for example FA status of the article is not affected, see Alzheimer's disease for an example FA using it. LeadSongDog come howl 07:12, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
I did it using a script that requires manual copy & paste; it was announced above under #Citation format. (Look for the word "pretty-printing".) I have no idea why anybody could think this makes editing the article harder. It certainly makes cleaning up the references significantly easier, and that's an overdue task that quite a few people have been working on recently. I can of course revert it using the same script; but that produces a massive diff, and therefore I would like to see a bit more discussion (and preferably a consensus) before I do this. So far the 4 editors participating in this thread are split evenly. --Hans Adler (talk) 07:22, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
It makes upkeep and editing of references much easier, even if it does mean more scrolling. As Hans has made the effort to present the references in this user-friendly way, I'd keep it like that. Fences and windows (talk) 15:36, 6 April 2009 (UTC)
It seems that fixing this to make it similar to the style elsewhere at Wikipedia would be too much work, so let's just learn to live with it here, but please don't do it elsewhere. I use Google Toolbar and can highlight the "ref", which makes it easy to find and edit text and references. This format makes it harder to find where sentences and paragraphs start and stop. I find streamlined refs easier to deal with, since dealing with references is often manual work. -- Fyslee (talk) 04:51, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

World Homeopathy Day

I'm not gonna edit this article till I learn the rules better, but World Homeopathy Day is celebrated worldwide on April 10th, so I hope some of you can take a look at this article favorably :-

Evidence profile for the efficacy of homeopathy – A new paradigm for medical sciences: "The Body Information Theory",

which I'm sure y'all can find on the Internet.-NootherIDAvailable (talk) 02:36, 7 April 2009 (UTC)) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))

It isn't peer-reviewed (summary of symposium proceedings) and is largely a discussion of the same evidence base for which the article cites peer-reviewed analyses. It also seems to be to some extent guilty of cherry-picking - for example I note that it cites Linde et al 1997 but not Linde et al 1999, which looked in particular at study quality and stated that the findings of the 1997 paper "at least overestimated the effects of homeopathic treatments". Brunton (talk) 07:48, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

External links - Associations and regulatory bodies

Of the 6 links in this section, 5 are clearly associations and not regulatory bodies. Wouldn't it be clearer to call this section simply "Associations", and possibly move the link to HPCUS someplace else? (I know how easily tempers and edit wars can rise here, so I leave the change to those who are more deeply involved in this topic.) --Art Carlson (talk) 10:58, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary. The HPCUS is clearly in the same class as the other links. I think it would be better to simply change the title, or perhaps find a second regulatory body. Although I guess that some of the professional organisations play a similar role anyway. --Hans Adler (talk) 11:04, 21 April 2009 (UTC)
DMOZ has a page for organizations. I dislike linking to organizations because you get scope and organization creep. Unless there is a world body, every country, state and group will start adding themselves to the list. In addition, it's not really world-wide to allow specific areas, nor is it really appropriate per WP:ELNO or WP:ELYES. The page is not about an organization, it's about homeopathy in general. DMOZ also has a regular page for homeopathy. I had added it, but Shoemaker's Holiday removed it citing extensive commerical entities (and no critical ones I think) so I'm content to leave it off. I'd be more in favour of replacing the DMOZ's organizations page though, it's ultimately got a useful collection of links to Europe, North America, Asia and Oceania org lists as well as the misc. list on the front page.
Right now, all the links are problematic in my mind - what nation does the "National Center for Homeopathy (NCH)" represent? Why does it deserve a mention? Why does the BHA? Why are there three for Europe, why does the US get one? I'd rather the whole set removed seeing as I don't see anything encyclopedic added by having them. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 15:51, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

New Source

This source is of interest [51] I think the abstract explains the main points. Smartse (talk) 16:02, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

This isn't new, it's a Boiron/Ennis paper. Was there something especially interesting? Verbal chat 16:07, 23 April 2009 (UTC)
Well, it was its fifth birthday on Tuesday... Brunton (talk) 16:49, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Mechanism of homeopathy

We don't have any great detail on the proposed mechanisms of homeopathy, and criticisms of these proposed mechanisms.

You may wanna see:-
1. Martin Chaplin, ed. (2007) "The Memory of Water." Homeopathy. 96:141-230 (Copies of the articles in this special issue along with discussion are available at Homeopathy Journal Club Bad Science, a blog by Ben Goldacre.
2. Khuda-Bukhsh AR (2003). Towards understanding molecular mechanisms of action of homeopathic drugs: an overview. Mol Cell Biochem 253: 339–45. PMID 14619985.
Regards,
NootherIDAvailable (talk) 13:04, 3 April 2009 (UTC) (Sock of User:Dr.Jhingaadey -- Brangifer (talk) 06:46, 9 June 2009 (UTC))
Regarding the "Memory of Water" special issue of Homeopathy, it's also worth looking at the responses to the papers in that issue published in the January 2008 issue of the same journal.
Regarding the second item, can you give us any details of the "interesting scientific works on homeopathy" of which this communication presents an overview, and say what it says about them? Unfortunately the full text is behind a paywall. Brunton (talk) 15:21, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
Khuda-Bukhsh's review is here.
Here's a debate between Khuda-Bukhsh and Moffet et al.: [52] [53] (the latter is un-free).
The Bad Science homeopathy journal club has links to a lot of (free) articles on mechanisms, including water memory. Fences and windows (talk) 15:26, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I now see that there's a mention of WQT in the section on effectiveness: "Positive results have been reported, but no single model has been sufficiently widely replicated. Local models proposed are far from convincing, and the nonlocal models proposed, often invoking "weak quantum theory", would predict that it is impossible to nail down homeopathic effects with direct experimental testing." This wording fails to explain what "local" and "non-local" mean in this context; a reader unfamiliar with the proposals of WQT would be confused. I don't think discussion of mechanisms is appropriate in a section on effectiveness; there should be a separate section called Mechanism of homeopathy. Fences and windows (talk) 20:06, 3 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree. The water memory nonsense got a lot of attention, and it would fit nicely into such a section. A better title might be Proposed mechanisms of homeopathy. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:49, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Just curious, but how can homeopathic preparations retain their "vital force" but not their disease-causing "force"? For example, some preparations are based on proven carcinogens and the practitioners claim the preparations can't cause cancer. 172.190.53.158 (talk) 02:31, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

As far as homoeopathy is concerned, the remedies have the power to cure because they have disease-causing powers. The concepts of desired effects and side effects are alien to homoeopathy - the remedies (allegedly) have effects, and it is simply a matter of matching the remedy's effects to the patient's overall symptoms. Brunton (talk) 08:19, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

Opening sentence: "larger doses"

Sorry to bring this up again, but a recent edit has made the opening sentence of the lead more directly contradict a sourced statement in the body of the article. Homeopathy does not try to treat disease with dilutions of substances that would cause the symptoms of the disease at larger doses: it treats disease with remedies that are claimed to cause the same symptoms in healthy volunteers. Hahnemann, by time he wrote the later editions of the Organon, recommended "proving" remedies (i.e. finding out what symptoms they caused) at 30C, and, as sourced in the article, "most modern provings are carried out using ultradilute remedies in which it is highly unlikely that any of the original molecules remain." My previous attempts to rephrase this sentence to better reflect the referenced statement in the body of the article have not met with approval - would anyone else like to suggest an alternative wording? Brunton (talk) 09:42, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

I've edited it accordingly so that the statement in the lead is at least true. I suspect that The "thought to" might not be acceptable, but the evidence that they actually do cause the symptoms they are claimed to is not exactly robust - "provings" are rarely adequately blinded, and there are several double-blind proving trials of potentised remedies which appear to show no significant effect. Brunton (talk) 09:44, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for taking care of this important point, which I was not aware of until recently. For me personally the use of very dilute substances in provings is as important as the use of ultradilute substances in remedies: These are the two key points where plausibility breaks down completely. Your formulation works for me. --Hans Adler (talk) 12:18, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

Bias?

It seems like the intro paragraphs are highly critical of homeopathy. I'm sure criticisms about, but shouldn't they be in the body of the article (which they are), but to focus so heavily on the criticisms in the lead in seems unencyclopedic? After all, its not some fringe practice, it is used widely across Asia, and Europe. Let's not let American bias interfere with the objectivity of the article. Warfwar3 (talk) 00:41, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

Please read the extensive discussions of this issue in the talk archives, linked at the top of the page, before deciding to tag the article. Homeopathy is most certainly a fringe practice, and this has nothing to do with pro-American bias. Skinwalker (talk) 01:18, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
The criticism is not a US centric position; it is based on homeopathy being a fringe theory (see WP:FRINGE), which is not supported by the scientific evidence. NPOV does not mean presenting all theories without criticism. Criticism needs to be given due weight in the lead, and this does not mean giving equal weight to support and criticism, but rather reflecting the facts and views expressed in reliable sources (see WP:MEDRS). Fences and windows (talk) 01:22, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
I am disputing the neutrality, so why do you remove the tag? Let us have a reasonable discussion and find the solution, like grown-ups. You can't dispute the fact that people are disputing the neutrality. And past consensus does not mean it can not change. Wikipedia is not a religion. We should not tolerate dogma. There are many times when a consensus has been reached on a certain article, only for it to be overturned at a later time. Warfwar3 (talk) 20:41, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
Per WP:LEAD, the lead section should summarize the body, with all key points presented. Could you please make specific suggestions based on the sources already used or new reliable sources regarding how the article might be improved?
Also, absent specific discussion of how to fix the perceived bias, the POV-tag should be removed. - Eldereft (cont.) 05:44, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Agreed. The discussion in this section comes nowhere close to justify a POV tag. I removed the tag (again). Eubulides (talk) 07:56, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
The current lead is dominated by criticism, which is not NPOV. Also, it does not summarise the article, having been written independently and contains many citations. A better approach would be to throw it away and start again by summarising the structure of the article. Of course, the main body of the article has to be made NPOV first. I shall be restoring the tag until this is done. Colonel Warden (talk) 08:00, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
The current lead is appropriately weighted, and is heavily cited due to the "bias" accusations which have been thrown around. The POV tag is not justified. We need specific issues, and hopefully ones that haven't already been addressed. (for example, pseudoscience and quackery has been addressed many times and should remain). The lead does summarise the article, and having been written "after" doesn't invalidate that - starting again would allow the same so called "criticism". The lead is POV because it's well sourced?? Verbal chat 08:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
No, the lead is POV because it consists almost entirely of sources that criticize homeopathy, while disparaging sources that support homeopathy. Just take a look at other "professional" encyclopedias and the difference is obvious. The article in general reads like an attack piece. Until we can resolve that, why shouldn't the tag remain? Let's not resort to censorship 96.233.45.165 (talk) 17:13, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Regarding claims of censorship, see Observation #1 here. Short Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 17:16, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
The most medically reliable sources, third-party reviews of literature, find homeopathy to be ineffective. The core sciences are totally unsupportive of just about everything about homeopathy. The best science available fails to support it. Ergo, per WP:UNDUE, placing any emphasis on it's "useful" applications is inappropriate. So the lead should be mostly unsupportive. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:simple/complex 18:43, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
Negative proof is practically impossible to obtain, but with homoeopathy, it’s about as close as you can get. Homoeopathy’s efficacy is totally non-existent and its proponents’ explanation of how the imaginary effects work is illogical. This is all scientific fact. Now how about let’s not let homoeopathic bias interfere with the objectivity of the article.… — NRen2k5(TALK), 09:03, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ Ernst E, Pittler MH (1998). "Efficacy of homeopathic arnica: a systematic review of placebo-controlled clinical trials". Archives of surgery (Chicago, Ill. : 1960). 133 (11): 1187–90. PMID 9820349.
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