Horizon’s homeopathy documentary
I’ve just watched the BBC Horizon programme on homeopathy, in which they run a test of homeopathic ‘medicine’ to check if it is at all effective. The programme does the somewhat annoying thing of making it sound like there’s a real question here – a necessary mechanism to make the situation at all dramatic to those who are not normally interested in these issues. Of course, the results do come out negative. Unfortunately, the conclusion drawn from this is that “homeopathy remains without any credible scientific explanation”. While this is strictly speaking true, it is also totally misleading. The purpose of the test that was carried out during the programme wasn’t to provide an explanation but to provide evidence for or against homeopathy. Even if the test had come out positive, there would still be no explanation. As it is, there is no explanation and no evidence – homeopathy is only a social phenomenon, the question to be asked is why do people insist on believing in it. Which leads to another issue that I wish the Horizon programme held dealt with but did not. The test was occassioned by the fact that Professor Madeleine Ennis, a biochiemist who treats homeopathy perfectly sceptically, none-the-less seemed to get positive results. I would have liked it if the programme had gone tried to work out what was wrong with her methodology that led to these results. In particular, if the problems were similar to those that led to the errors in the research carried out by Prof. Benveniste. That information would be particularly useful in stopping this sort of silliness from occurring again somewhere else.
Even with all of these reservations, I think the programme is well worth watching.
Jeeeez! Do you really believe in “tv science”? Get real! For an analysis about why this BBC “study” is “junk science,” read one or more articles about what really happened here at:
http://www.homeopathic.com/articles/by_category.jsp?id=37
If you appreciate good science, you too should be concerned about the BBC’s awful effort to do it.
Dana, I do not think that there is any live scientific issue concerning homeopathy except why intelligent people continue to believe in it. Having said that, the BBC is hardly a scientific authority and I did not bring it up here as such. Still, it is a long way from not being a scientific authority to producing ‘junk science’. Unfortunately, your comment strikes me as that of a true believer who has become psychologically incapable of examining the evidence. My saying that does not carry much weight, of course, and is perfectly open to the ‘tu quoque’ response. Yet, at least one of us is wrong.
In short, I am not interested in seriously re-examining the evidence for homeopathy as I do not think it deserves such examination, just as the evidence for the existence of the Olympic gods does not deserve such examination. I am, however, interested in understanding belief in homeopathy and trying to see how such examples of pseudo-scientific thinking are related to superstitious thinking.
“TV science?” I agree that there is a real problem with the way science is produced for TV but we must recognize that we are increasingly answerable to the public who pay for science through taxation (they also pay for the BBC). And for most, non-scientists (including most of UK policitians… they get their science from the media. Rather than just dismissing TV science I think that we have to be proactive in actually improving standards… I know it is not easy as most producers have the attention span of a fly but we simply can’t ignore it.
well what utter arrogance, Konrad. You berate Dana for not being interested in the evidence but then state neither are you. That’s not an opinion that is a problem. Maybe you should stop believing in your own opinion quiteso much and think a little.