After one of the Guardian’s Comment is Free bloggers posted an article rebutting Ms. Winterson’s, a former lecturer in Islamic Studies (No, I don’t see a link here either…), Denis MacEoin, has added yet another pro-homeopathy article.

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/denis_maceoin/2007/11/your_ignorance_is_showing.html

Once again it seems that all those scientists who were trying to test homeopathy were doing it wrong, because gosh-darn-it homeopathy is just untestable.

I see ad hominem piled on top of the argument from ignorance and a bunch of other exciting fallacies.

I’m suspicious. Very suspicious. That’s a bit quick dontcha think

Following on the heels of recent news that many drugs prescribed by doctors (and sold by pharmacies) lack an FDA approval, how many people are aware that LESS THAN FIFTY PERCENT (50%) of western medical practice is based on valid scientific evidence and some experts estimate that number is low as FIFTEEN PERCENT (15%).

source–
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2007/0710.brownlee.html

At 15%, I have to imagine the whole of Alternative Medicine has more valid science behind it than that.

It would be a tremendous service if you could identify the top dozen or so western practices that would utterly astonish people to know have as much scientific validity as homeopathy. There has to be some real doozies at the top of the list.

So busy was I last week blogging about other things, somehow I missed an amazingly, jaw-droppingly idiotic defense of homeopathy Jeanette Winterson published in The Guardian earlier this week. As you might imagine, it was just begging for a heapin’……

This is a pretty small selection, as I mentioned.

Given the sweeping nature of their claims and the finality of the Lancet editorial, you would think that this “anecdotal” meta-study would at least specify the input data clearly enough for interested parties to review it.

Or are you telling me that the authors didn’t need to disclose which six allopathic studies and which eight homeopathic studies they based their analysis on because this … is evidence-based medicine?

Your point is not valid. You have to interpret the entire literature and when you do homeopathy fails to show any effect. It also cannot propose a viable mechanism.

Regarding this particular study, you make it sound like they are being deceptive. But in the abstract they say how they selected trials and the number they selected. There is no deception. This is a standard method for a systematic review – they gave their search methods, the number of trials used, and out of those trials how many met specific criteria – in this case large and high quality studies with a design adequate to minimize bias. Eight large high quality studies is not a small amount of data – and it shows that the best studies are negative. This is a very significant pattern in any research. In mainstream evidence-based medicine such a treatment would not be used – it would be considered ineffective. What evidence-based justification do you have to consider homeopathy effective for anything?