Confessions of a Quackbuster

This blog deals with healthcare consumer protection, and is therefore about quackery, healthfraud, chiropractic, and other forms of so-Called "Alternative" Medicine (sCAM).

Friday, July 16, 2004

The Memory of Water: Homeopathic Musings

Does homeopathic water "remember" its origins? That's what is claimed! I've done a little thinking about the implications of this idea.

A lot of it has been through the gastrointestinal tracts of a lot of people. Thereafter a lot of toilets and sewage treatment plants, before finally ending up as pure, distilled water, ready to be brainwashed into forgetting its past. First then is it prepared to selectively remember only its contact with the active, healing substances it was brought into contact with for a short time in the apothecary's lab.

Is homeopathic water actually reincarnated piss? Can a regression therapist help it remember its past lives? What tales could it tell? Of course it probably will remember passing through a famous historical person and actually being in a royal toilet! Homeopathic water isn't just ordinary water. It comes with a royal pedigree.

Does the longer passage time for men than for women (men therefore succuss the water looonger than women ..... ;-) result in accounts from reincarnated piss of its origins from famous men, more frequently than from famous women? (I'm assuming that more succussing results in longer and better memory-retention.)

But what happens if the water has amnesia? If it has a defective memory function, how will it then be able to remember its contact with a healing substance? Again, it'll need to go into therapy. Maybe then the regression therapist can help it recall its birth and other traumatic experiences. Can water be psychotic or neurotic? Maybe psychotherapy is what's needed. Can water have split or multiple personalities? We're really getting in deep water here!

This all sounds quite hypothetical. If, if, if.... Like Roger Whittaker sings, "If's an illusion". Just like homeopathy. And illusions can be powerful things. Just like faith, they can move mountains - mountains of money!

It's been said that there's more between heaven and earth than meets the eye. Maybe. But most of it is free fantasy. And when free fantasy gets run through the alt. med. spinning wheel, it becomes an elaborate, sometimes enticingly beautiful fabric, which can be sold. It's no longer free. Now fantasy costs! And since nobody in their right mind would dream of paying for fantasy, their cognitive dissonance plays them a trick. They excuse themselves for doing something so dumb, with the rationalization: "It worked for me. That's proof enough".

Another singer, Enya, has recorded a great CD called "The Memory of Trees". Maybe she should record one called "The Memory of Water".... ;-)

We need to get Bill Cosby & Jerry Seinfeld to work up a series of homeopathic jokes!

Sorry folks, but sometimes I just have a hard time keeping a straight face when thinking about homeopathy.... ;-) It just proves that even totally nonsensical and illogical ideas can get swallowed by otherwise intelligent people. Intelligence is not always an effective vaccine against foolishness!

The acid test of the ability, or lack of it, to experience cognitive dissonance, is homeopathy. On the condition that the way it works is known (by its own definitions), anyone that can believe in homeopathy is, by definition, very seriously illogical. They are most likely immune to logical arguments regarding other forms of quackery. (But try discussing their financial affairs, and they can suddenly become very logical! Especially if they can turn a quick buck.)

The above are some of my own homeopathic "insights" from the previous millennium (I DO understand how homeopathy works! That's why I'm just a little sarcastic).


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John Stone replied to the above with the following comment:

"I once saw the calculation .... but am too busy at the moment to recreate it, but in every cup
of water (8.4 x 10^24 molecules) there is at least one molecule that has passed through the body of every famous person that ever lived --- Jesus, Aristotle, etc --- which is one more molecule than what it is claimed to contain ... think about that the next time you go to communion."

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And Robert Imrie, DVM followed with this one:

"I see a sketch wherein a cigar-smoking, spectacle-wearing, goateed, lab-coat-clad Sigmund Fraud look-alike is conducting a "psycoanalytical session." His "patient," an eight-ounce
tumbler full of tap water, is resting on an over-stuffed Victorian couch. A couple of "homeopathic
detector electrodes" lead from the tumbler to a computer/monitor setup next to the good Doktor Professor. Dr. Fraud pensively presses his fingertips together and asks "Und, how long vood you say you've been suffering from zis 'memory loss'? The computer monitor crackles
with homeopathic static, and the tumbler's answer prints out across the screen. Eventually,
the good Doktor Professor pulls a gold pocketwatch from a vest pocket and swings it in front
of the tumbler assuring it that it's "getting shleeeeepier und shleeeeepier." He then proceeds
to employ post-hypnotic suggestion to implant false memories, because, as we all know, "false memories are better than no memories at all -- even for a glassful of water."

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Timothy Gorski, MD, gets the prize for saving mankind! He's figured out how to spread it around the world.....;-):

"I drank a homeopathic remedy. I urinated and flushed. Soon the remedy will spread throughout the world, becoming ever more powerful as it becomes more diluted."

****I think Dr. Gorski deserves a Nobel Prize!

This means that the contents of the Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean and Indian oceans can be used as homeopathic remedies for anything we wish. One poor duck's life can be saved, since
it won't have to offer its liver and heart to make a homeopathic potion that is enough to supply the entire earth's needs for an entire year. But the manufacturers won't be happy. They'll
miss the profits. "U.S. News & World Report noted that only one duck per year is needed to manufacture the product, which had total sales of $20 million in 1996. The magazine dubbed that unlucky bird "the $20-million duck." There's big money in quackery! "Quack, quack",
said the duck!

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Homeopathy is God's way of thinning the flock. - dpr

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This last insightful quote from Peter Dorn kind of sums it all up:

Homeopathy is bullshit. Only very, very diluted. It's completely safe to drink.

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HomeoLinks: Homeopathy Articles & Links

HomeoWatch

Homeopathy: The Ultimate Fake

Homeopathy and Science: A Closer Look