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September 14th, 2009
 | 10:52 am
Here is a demonstration of homeopathy done by Crispian Jago, well known skeptic. He takes a cup of pee and adds 1 ml of it to 100 ml of water. (It's pointed out that he should have added it to 99 ml of water, but who's counting.) He then adds 1 ml of the new solution to another 100 ml cup of water. He does this 30 times to achieve a "C30" solution--1 part pee to 1000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 parts water (that's 60 zeros). According to one of the commentors, by the 12th cup there should be less than one "molecule" of urine in the cup. After another 18 cups, there are quite fewer than one molecule of pee in the cup. In fact, I believe I read somewhere else that a C30 solution would have to contain more molecules of water than there are atoms in the universe for it to also contain any of the original substance.
But that's OK! homeopathy is magic, remember?
Anyway, this is a good demonstration as to how homeopathy "works." If you ever need to explain it, this is a good video to watch or show.
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July 31st, 2009
| 09:23 am
In case it's not very clear, homeopathic "medicine" is pure water that's been imbued with "magic healing properties." The premise is that you take something that causes the problem (e.g. caffeine for sleeplessness), put it in water, and then dilute the shit out of it until there is, sometimes literally, less than one molecule of the given substance per more molecules of water than there can possibly exist in the solar system, and then slap a label on it and call it medicine. The water is supposed to magically remember the substance it contained, and then somehow in reverse use the memory of that substance to heal you. Seriously. That's how homeopathy works. Or doesn't work. It's like curing obesity with cheesecake. Or rather, like curing obesity with an empty cheesecake box. There is absolutely no possible mechanism by which it can do a damned thing other than quench your thirst or put out a fire.
Remember, there is no such thing as "alternative medicine." Either it works, and we just call it "medicine", or it doesn't work, and we call it a sham.
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July 27th, 2009
| 09:42 pm
Studies Show Alternative Medicine Ineffective
Laura Roma,
Grant Writer
"So my idiot friends who have never been to medical school don't know what they're talking about?"
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May 6th, 2009
| 01:29 pm
My sister in law once asked me why I thought Oprah Winfrey was a douche. I semi-explained that it was due to her promotion of pseudo-science to fill her purse. I recently read an article about Jenny McCarthy and Oprah Winfrey that reminded me of that question. Then I read this BadAstronomy post about a four-week-old child in Australia who died of whooping cough. What does this have to do with anything? Let me try to explain.
The anti-vax crowd, in which Jenny McCarthy includes herself, is convinced that vaccines cause autism. This is not true. [1], [2], [3], [4]. However, due to her celebrity status, the generally gullible population listens to her and doesn't vaccinate its children against common and easily dealt-with diseases, including whooping cough. This pretty much sucks for the children in question, since they now have a greatly increased chance of contracting the disease in question. This would be bad enough if that were the end of it. But it's not.
Herd immunity is when a population is generally protected against a disease because a certain percentage of its people are vaccinated or otherwise immune to the disease, thereby protecting the rest against infection. Some people cannot be vaccinated due to allergies or other reasons. These people rely on herd immunity to be protected from the disease. The fewer people who have their children vaccinated against certain diseases, the more likely the disease will spread to those who aren't vaccinated, and people die. Those who choose to go unvaccinated, those whose parents decide to not have them vaccinated, and those who can't be vaccinated like the four-week-old infant mentioned above.
Read again: children die because of the proven falsehoods that people like Jenny McCarthy spread.
And since Oprah, with her billions of American dollars, and her vast audience, promotes this and other pseudo-science and sham medicine, she is a douche.
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May 1st, 2009
November 21st, 2008
 | 11:25 am
Ginkgo proves ineffective in preventing dementia, Alzheimer's
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/scienceblogrssfeed/~3/PeTIuAI3ysk/ginkgo-proves-ineffective-preventing-dementia-alzheimers-17824.html
One of the most widely used herbal supplements for improving memory and cognition has no impact on the development of dementia or Alzheimer's disease, according to new results from a $30 million, multi-center study.
Also my wife is funny. We were watching Alexander, and the scene where he rides into Babylon came on. We were looking at the CGI version of the city, and I said that I wanted to live there. She said, "nuh uh. It looks like crap and was probably covered in pee." I'm so proud that she pays attention to the boring crap I try to teach her.
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