(no subject)

[avevale_intelligencer]

Here's how sceptics think we work:

RANDOM GUY IN PUB: Gosh, wouldn't it be great if the moon was made of sockeye salmon?

EVERYONE ELSE IN PUB: Huzzah! We Believe! The moon is made of sockeye salmon!!

EVERYONE IN WORLD, EXCEPT, YOU KNOW, THE CLEVER ONES LIKE YOU AND ME: *writes books, sings songs, makes videos, sells lucky pieces of moon salmon, forms Church of Saint Luna The Fishy*

THE CLEVER ONES: *sneer and feel good about how clever they are*

Homoeopathy (in which, for the record, I do not necessarily believe) is not just a case of someone saying "hey, if you dilute something it gets more powerful" and being instantly elevated to godhood by the marching morons. It is a complex system of classification of various substances which are held, on the basis (presumably--I wasn't there) of experimental evidence, to have highly specific effects on equally specific conditions of the mind and body, when diluted to specific potencies. A large number of people have been studying and refining the subject for a couple of hundred years. There is of course nothing to say that a large number of people can't be wrong, though it does seem like kind of an obvious thing to be wrong about. I mean, it's not like the world going round the sun, or that thing with the photons and the gates.

But by all the gods in creation, I get so ANGRY when some fellow human being thinks himself so far above the rest of us because some of us choose to believe in something that he simply has not looked at, presumably in case idiocy is catching. Or more likely, in case, just in case, there might be something in it and he might have to admit he's human as well.

"I don't have to know anything about it to know it's wrong" is not a valid argument. I know this from personal experience. I also know that the obvious is not necessarily true.

And "weaponise" is not a word, damn it.

In other news, no response from Accu-Chek, and the pen thingy you stab yourself with has finally broken and lost its spring, so we've had to take the black one anyway because we needed a working pen. On the upside, I didn't have to pay for it this time.

Comments

[aunty_marion]

I was in Boots the other day and they had the Accu-Chek which I think is the model you've got - the all-black one - and another one which looked different, in blue/grey and silver - a bigger pen-stabby-thing with lancets in drums, from what I could see of it on the box. But I think you should possibly look for a different company if A-C are messing you around.

I dunno about homoeopathy - most of it doesn't seem to work on me, but that may just be me. And, for something that may not work, it's rather pricey. However, I do know people who swear by it. (And others who swear *at* it, of course!)

[keristor.livejournal.com]

Same with me for the homeopathic things I've tried. But that could be because I'm not the same as other people who find they work (goodness knows there are enough different reactions to things), or because the effects are subtle enough that I don't notice them. The whole "less is more" thing I find counter-intuitive, but then there are a lot of things which are apparently counter-intuitive (orbital mechanics, for instance, and flying a powered aircraft) so that's not a valid reason for them to not work. I would love to see a proper study done of them by someone independent and open-minded, if I win the lottery perhaps I'll fund one...

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Homeopathy seems to have three main roots, one of which is not like the others, and maybe came in from another system:

• The Doctrine of Signatures - the idea that materials with a similarity (shape/colour etc) to parts of the body appear as they do as an indication they can be used to cure ills and ailments of those parts.
• The idea that small amounts of a material that causes a particular condition, or similar symptoms to a condition, when taken in bulk, will cure or at least ameliorate it (this is superficially weird, but - hey - vaccination works!
• The idea that you can take your small amount of material from above and dilute it so much that you don't get any of the bad effects, but somehow a signature is left in the water that does the good stuff (sounds reasonable in a "we froze the ice so fast it was still warm" sense, except that some homeopathic tinctures are presented in such a way that one patient's undesirable side-effect is the other's cure: how does the body know?)

Disclaimer: I've worked in drug design, molecular modelling and pharmacology and generally don't have much time for stuff that can't be rigorously tested.

Counter-disclaimer: that said, I'm agnostic[1] rather than atheist, and am happy enough to accept stuff until such time as people can come up with an actual proof that it's untrue. Confused, and an odd position for a scientist? Yup, sure is....

[1] Ah, but which god or gods am I unsure of? That's another hard question....

[aunty_marion]

The second of your points about homoeopathy (the one keristor quotes as 'less is more') is the one I understand best - after all, digitalis (foxglove) is a poison which stops the heart in large doses, but in smaller controlled ones is a useful medicine for heart disease. And as you say, vaccination!

Agnostic atheist here too - I'm with NoGood Boyo: "I don't know who's up there ... and I don't care!"

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

igitalis (foxglove) is a poison which stops the heart in large doses, but in smaller controlled ones is a useful medicine for heart disease.

Wouldn't that be the opposite of homeopathy? I thought in homeopathy things got *more* potent as you diluted them?

[akicif.livejournal.com]

It's a sort of doublethink: the more dilute something is, the more beneficial it is, so diluting poisons makes them safer. I'm trying to remember the homeopathic product that was sold for two separate ailments: the actual plant material has two effects and when the diluted tincture was put in a bottle labelled "cure for ailment A" one of these was the good one that diluting potentiated and the other was the evil side effect that was diluted to non-existence. Label the bottle "cure for ailment B", however, and the effects switched round....

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

Vaccinations aren't cures/remedies -- they're preventatives -- so they're a different sort of thing, but yeah, I'd call them homeopathic. They're not "like cures like"; they're "if we give the body a little, the immune system will learn to respond quickly" ... The other example that came to mind of mainstream medicine using homeopathy was allergy shots, which also work by conditioning the immune system ("if we give the body a little, maybe[*] the immune system will learn not to freak out"). And I've heard claims (I don't know whether this has been scientifically tested or not) that adding honey cultivated locally -- from pollen gathered from local plants -- to your diet can lessen allergic reactions to local plants (over the long term) by the same or a similar mechanism as allergy shots work.

As for digitalis, I don't know enough about it to know whether it counts or not. Many allopathic medicines are poisons in large doses. (For an extreme case of that, consider chemotherapy: "We're going to feed you poison in the hope that the cancer cells will die of it before you do; fortunately we've had a bit of practice at this but you'll still feel like you're eating poison".)

[*] Doesn't always work. Works often enough to be worth trying though. Helped me when I was younger.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Vaccinations aren't usually about "giving the body a little" or they would work better if you diluted them.

They're about giving the body a piece of the bacterium/virus, or a dead bacterium/virus or a crippled bacterium/virus so the body learns to "respond" to a harmless substance.

Homeopathy appears to be about using a substance that has the effect you're trying to prevent (something that makes you feverish to, counterintuively, reduce fever) and then diluting it, usually to the point that there's none of the substance left (which at least won't make the fever worse). The theory (I think) is that you teach the body *not* to "respond" to the dilute/not there substance (maybe?), and this somehow teaches it also not to "respond" to the natural substances in the body that cause fever (I think?).

I don't think that vaccination is homeopathy. Allergy shots, on the other hand, which actually work by an entirely non-homeopathic mechanism (instead of learning not to respond, as far as I know the body learns to respond harder, but by a different route, IgG instead of IgE), at least give the outer appearance of homeopathy.

[keristor.livejournal.com]

"agnostic ... an odd position for a scientist?"

Not at all, in my opinion. Any good scientist should be open to evidence in either direction, whatever their personal beliefs of the moment. A lot of things in medicine were dismissed as "old wives' tales", some were found to be true and others false but deciding either way before there is evidence is non-scientific.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

That's how I feel. Of course, not being a scientist, what I do or don't believe has no significance to anyone but me, ha ha.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

The idea that small amounts of a material that causes a particular condition, or similar symptoms to a condition, when taken in bulk, will cure or at least ameliorate it (this is superficially weird, but - hey - vaccination works!

Does vaccination work better if you dilute the dose?

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Nope, but the whole "diluting makes stronger" thing seems to be a combination of the last two items I listed, rather than an actual first principle.

Certainly there's no evidence for homeopathic patients dying of an accidental underdose, or of labels saying the children's dose is two pills four hourly when the adults take one every four hours....

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Certainly there's no evidence for homeopathic patients dying of an accidental underdose,

Oh, I hadn't thought of that. You only ever need to buy one bottle of homeopathic medicine; every time the level gets down to half, you just dilute what's left with water until the bottle is full again.

Sort of like the loaves and fishes, only anyone can do it. :-)

[armb.livejournal.com]

> Here's how sceptics think we work

Ironically, you sound like someone who has never actually looked at how sceptics work but is going to make dismissive statements about them anyway. I suspect that's just because you are (justifiably) angry and actually you meant "here's how some people who claim to be sceptics think we work".


> "weaponise" is not a word, damn it

It's an ugly jargon word, but in some contexts it's clearly useful.

And if you have a lot of ageing nuclear warheads and would like reactor fuel for electricity generation, for example, so is "de-weaponise".

[jahura.livejournal.com]

The thing about jargon is that it's designed to be a buzzword around the group that uses it, but not necessarily used outside of that group. I would not, for example, use inservice outside of where I work to mean "issue a warning." As it is the word is frequently being confused with "punish" because of the fact that it isn't an established word outside of the corporation, and a main reason I don't like it and refuse to let it catch on.

"De-weaponise" is a new one on me. It sounds like something someone came up with who couldn't think of disarm or neutralise at the moment - and as this person had some significant influence over the group, it caught on. Yet it has that similar tinge to "nucular", which is okay if you're in the White House but still causes millions to slap their own foreheads in disbelief when heard over the airwaves.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

This is the thing. "Weaponise," presumably, means "convert into a weapon." So why not say "convert into a weapon"? I can't think of any useful reason. Laziness, inability to construct a sentence, and the desire to sound mysterious and important spring to mind.

"Never use four words when one will do" is a good rule when using one word makes the sentence easier to understand. Making up a word because you can't be bothered to use four short and simple ones is geflotzenplang, which is a clearly useful word I just invented meaning "obnoxious, pretentious and silly."

[jahura.livejournal.com]

I am aware that I am ignorant to the original subject of discussion and so I have no idea of in what context "weaponise" is being used. Normally I wouldn't dwell on a tangent but this case I wouldn't attibute to laziness - if the person who said that is intelligent and expressive it may be attributable to creative license with the intent to bring more attention to that point of the argument.

Sometimes people make up words on the spot because they don't have a pocket Thesaurus on hand, or in the heat of the moment fail to come up with a word that accurately describes the point. If the word bothers you, you don't have to use it yourself. Not everyone is inclined to pause and say, "[Ononmatopoeia], what is that word?"

[billroper]

As an example, if one wanted to "weaponise" anthrax, you'd convert the material so that the spores were finely powdered, easily dispersed in air, and easily inhaled.

[armb.livejournal.com]

But a disarmed or neutralised warhead isn't necessarily one that has been converted to non-weapon use, rather than merely made safe as a weapon for now.

[jahura.livejournal.com]

If you are going to beat a sword into a plowshare so it is still as sharp but not used for combat purposes, then why isn't neutralise an applicable word? It's neither offensive nor defensive, but true neutral, and used for an innocuous purpose.

[EDIT:] Ooops - I have to remember to use 's' in place of 'z' in this neighborhood - apologies to those I offended who saw that.

[armb.livejournal.com]

> The thing about jargon is that it's designed to be a buzzword around the group that uses it

Technical shorthand and buzzwords aren't necessarily the same. And yes, using jargon in a context where the shorthand isn't understood is unhelpful. Without knowing the original context, I don't know if that applies here. But it's considerably shorter than, say, "grown, dried into spores, purified, ground into particles between 1 and 5 microns in diameter, and mixed with a similar size powder which won't clump".

[jahura.livejournal.com]

Technical shorthand and buzzwords aren't necessarily the same.

In an environment where unlikely partnerships are forged (in my case, corporate and medical) it's hard to tell the difference. Sometimes it depends on the tehnical expertise of the person using the phrase as to whether it can be judged as jargon or buzzword. To a simple prole like myself, it's both.

How would such a phrase be described as weaponising? Potentizing I could see, but weaponising in that context I would infer as growing and mixing a lethal poison. Is that what the substance in question is?

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that was the recipe for a mailable anthrax weapon.

I'd be quite happy with that process *in the context of the intent of using it as a weapon* being described as "weaponising the anthrax". The word is potentially conveying quite a lot of information, in two different domains: Process (although other processes could have been meant) and intent. If your job is to investigate suspicious lab activity and pin down the intent, then it could be a very useful bit of jargon. If your job is to explain things to the general public, on the other hand, it could just be a needlessly obfuscatory buzzword. Context is everything.

Language evolves to best fit the niches it finds itself living in; Taking specialised language out of its natural habitat and then mocking it for its inability to stand up straight like a *proper* word is just cruel.

[jahura.livejournal.com]

I can weaponise my iron skillet by holding it upward at a ninety degree angle perpendicular to my ear if I have the intent of swinging it at someone's head. What would someone who uses a word like weaponise describe if I were simply holding it at the same angle and position in preparation of placing it in my cupboard? Castracise, perhaps?

I can hear you cringe from here. Unfortunately, sometimes words are formed from really bad jokes like that. But context with popularity are where we get words like toxify and galumph. It's not my intention to mock the word weaponising at all, if one chooses to use it. I just was a bit confused with the use of it in context with homeopathics (oops - I almost said homeopathy).

It isn't really my place to say whether a word is a word or not if it gets the point across. I'm neither an editor nor a writer. I'm just a schmo.

[madfilkentist]

You offer a caricature of skepticism. That's not a promising start.

Then you neglect to note that people have a finite amount of time for investigating all the claims in the world. Some of the more improbable claims may indeed have some basis which hasn't been well publicized. But wrapping their claims in jargon is not an argument. Referring to a "specific potency" without noting that the potency is (by design) zero for all practical purposes may sound more impressive, but doesn't constitute a reason for spending more time on examining a claim which has no logic on the face of it.

I've heard some other claims of homeopathy which make a certain amount of sense, and get forgotten alongside the more spectacular claim. Its advocates say that traditional medicine often over-medicates, and the mainstream is coming to agree with this in some cases (antibiotics, at least).

Occasionally it's worth spending time examining odd claims in more depth. James Hogan's Kicking the Sacred Cow, for instance, presents such things as a non-religious defense of Intelligent Design and a case for Velikovsky's theory of a planetary collision. He didn't convince me on any of those points, but at least exercised my mind. But this isn't what I need to spend most of my mental energy on.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Head cooler now. And yes, it was an exaggerated view, but what I exaggerated exists. My anger has cause. If one does not have enough time to investigate a claim, one need not waste any time at all on attacking it with derision.

I have examined many claims which have no logic on the face of them, found them wanting, and been told that sorry, that's the way it is. "Logic on the face of it" is no longer a valid criterion for belief as far as I'm concerned, at least till someone tells me differently. (Reminder here, because someone is bound to bring it up, that I do not necessarily believe homoeopathy or anything else *just because* it's illogical on the face of it...)

And having read some Hogan, I'd be very surprised if his intention on either of those points was to convince...but it sounds like an interesting read, as long as it doesn't get as preachy as some of his fiction is.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

I liked Hogan's stuff once, but after meeting him at one of the Wincons in the early nineties, it was fairly obvious that not only was he the textbook example of Engineer's Syndrome but his (not so) latent homophobia had been well and truly stirred up by the Andrew Neill / Sunday Times school of AIDS-denial. Oh, and he's now claiming the holocaust didn't happen either....

[madfilkentist]

Hogan has gotten really weird, but I didn't know about that last one. I can't figure out if he's just decided to be a contrarian on everything or what.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

You say "skeptics think 'non-skeptics think X'," apparently because you think "skeptics think non-skeptics think X."

So you've committed precisely the act that irritated you in the first place.

And, as a skeptic, I'm now irritated as well. But at least you understand how I must be feeling, having so recently felt exactly the same thing for exactly the same reason yourself.

I don't think that homeopathy became popular because of a bunch of credulous idiots jumping to conclusions--I think homeopathy became popular because at least its remedies did nothing to make things worse. Homeopathy was founded in the 18th century, when "regular medicine" such as it was, had no standards for proving medical efficacy, and a fondness for poisonous substances that at least made it plain you were doing *something* to the hapless patient. In those times a method that did no harm was often an improvement.

That doesn't mean I think it's real; nor will I, until it can survive the same sort of rigorous scientific examination that any other idea for medicine has to. Nor is there anything wrong or unfair about me thinking this way.

If you take pleasure in preparing concoctions of flowers and water, or sugar, or alcohol, or in having such concotions prepared for you, that's fine with me. The placebo effect works sometimes, so it might even help, and at least you probably won't hurt yourself or others, as long as you take it easy with the alcohol.

But let's not pretend there's anything unfair about my desire to stick with medicine, which has made great strides since the 1700s.

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

It may also be worth noting, more as a footnote than as anything directly on-point, that some concoctions of flowers etc. are allopathic, and I could well also imagine some having homeopathic uses at measurable concentrations.

For example, an infusion or tincture of lavender and basil is useful to me in treating migraine when stronger (and patentable and 'monetizable' (to drag in a worse neologism than 'weaponize')) drugs are not available. And I recall a journalist / heart-patient who took an extended trip around the southwestern US visiting shamans and folk healers, claiming he'd lost his heart meds, and asking for herbal remedies -- he then took the various concoctions back to his doctor, who had them analyzed, and was told, "well in this combination, this plant does more or less what this pill I prescribed does, and this plant does what this other pill I prescribed and this third pill to moderate the side effects of the second pill do; in this other combination they use this plant instead ..." So let's take care not to conflate herbalism with homeopathy. Mainstream Western medicine is still finding new uses for that salicylate that comes from willow bark after all!

In herbalism we usually see two modes in operation -- well, two and a half: 1) "This has been reported to work for generations, and anecdotaly it appears to do so," 1.5) "This plant contains the same chemicals as / contains chemical anologues to / was the original source of such-and-such drug that was worth somebody's budget to get properly tested and approved," (with an optional "but because it's natural instead of processed it's better for you"[*]), and 2) "This plant ought to work because it's been traditionally associated with the following magickal properties / exhibits characteristics that suggest it ought to also have relevant [homeopathic|allopathic] properties."

The first two are straighforward science, either at the untested-but-plausible hypothesis stage or the experimentally-verified stage; the third is magick (which IMHO is okay until it gets dressed up in scientific jargon and becomes pseudoscience).

The main problem with (allopathic[**]) herbal remedies is that without the promise of monopoly profits by way of patents, there's little incentive for corporations to do the large controlled studies required to be sure just how effective they are. Occasionally a government- or university-funded study will test a plant that way, but it's a pretty small slice of the pie.

So -- concoctions of flowers, and dilutions so dilute there's nothing there any more: two things that can be put together, but not the same thing as each other to start with.

[*] 'Natural' really means "is being supplied with a much greater variation in potency from batch to batch than a synthesized pill, and contains Other Stuff as well which may introduce different side effects if you're unlucky or ameliorate known side effects if you're lucky." So by going natural you can wind up significantly better or worse off, or about the same as buying a pill from a big pharma company. If you choose the right herbs (and there are herbs that do what you need).

[**] Or homeopathic using meaningful dosages -- such as build-up-tolerance-through-exposure aproaches where applicable -- rather than the "there may or may not be a molecule of the relevant substance here but the water remembers anyhow" dilutions.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

It is quite true that some plants contain some drugs. Taxol and the pacific yew spring to mind--digitalis and foxglove-- proto-aspirin and willowbark (aspirin has actually been chemically modified to be easier on the stomach than the corresponding willowbark compound).

And it is true that some folk remedies actually work, for this reason. (Well, plus the placebo effect, but that applies to anything administered with an appropriately serious expression.) But some folk remedies work better than placebos.

My point was not intended to be "herbs don't work" it was intended to be "homeopathic remedies" (in which the herbs have been diluted until they are gone or nearly gone) "don't work, but they won't hurt you and you're free to believe they're great if you like, as long as you don't expect me to agree with you."

I would recommend against using herbs known to contain regular medicines also, but mostly because of the lack of quality control that you noted under "Natural."

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Well, lots to note here. Everyone's defending the debunking of homoeopathy and nobody's addressing the actual cause of my anger, which is a general and pervasive phenomenon and only marginally to do with the thing that sparked this off.

Whether you think something is true or false is up to you. Whether you think people who think otherwise are stupid is up to you. Nothing wrong with any of that. But when I see someone sneering at people who think otherwise than him/her, I will sound off. Whether I agree with them or not. Sneering and arrogance invalidate any argument as far as I am concerned.

Also, provocative and largely wrong-headed rants get more response than anything else I can think of to put in this journal. Le sigh. Oh well, I should have another one for you in *consults watch* a couple of hours...

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Might it not be better to sound off in a location/forum where (a) the context makes it clearer what you're sounding off about, and (b) the people who actually need to hear you are present, and possibly even listening?

The pattern I see recurring in your posts of this ilk is that you exit from a discussion that has got you riled, post a rebuttal/retort here that probably would have made complete sense if you'd said it over there, and end up confusing and upsetting loyal readers who don't know the context and think you mean *them*, or possibly their friends. Careless use of blanket labels ("sceptics", in this case) contributes to the effect.

I recall with... er... "fondness"(?)... a most dramatic instance of this, where someone from the original discussion actually pursued you home from the metaphorical pub and proceeded to take up the original argument right here in your living room, as it were. Which had the effect of initially adding to the confusion for the rest of us here gathered, and then providing considerable clarity as he proceeded to beautifully illustrate your point by example, rather than actually addressing it. (The point in question was, loosely put, "why can't people discuss certain things nicely instead of being mean to each other?")

I often find myself wondering where on earth these dreadful places are that you go to to be so inflamed by debates that I never get to witness. For me, they have all the terrible allure of a train-wreck that just happened somewhere round the next corner... =:o\

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Or to put it more succinctly... Perhaps you're just hanging out with the wrong crowd?

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

I'm hanging out with the crowd I want to hang out with, right here. The question is whether I'm fit to hang out with them.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

You're not the only one who's noticed this pattern.

I sound off here because here is where I live, as it were. Often the person whose journal I'm in is not the person who's got me angry (whom they are simply quoting), and venting my spleen in my journal seems to me preferable to honking up their comment thread wth opinions they do not want and would be within their rights to delete. Also, it means that this is where to come to find Zander Ranting, and where to avoid if you don't want to. Your one stop shop for woolly-liberal invective.

I'm sorry it confuses and upsets people. My options are (a) do it, (b) do it where nobody will hear it, by making the posts private, by censoring them before posting, or by doing them somewhere else, (c) bottle it all up.

If I do it privately my views never get challenged, which I think is a necessary thing (even if I don't enjoy it) because I'm wrong often enough for it to matter.

If I bottle it up...well, that would probably mean cutting off the blogging, because it's just too much of a temptation when I'm hot to go into rant mode.

So neither of those options are favourite for me, but if I'm causing people problems then obviously I will take one or the other option, because that's not what this journal is supposed to be for.

Dreadful places? The web. LJ mostly.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

"Your one stop shop for woolly-liberal invective."

Hey, that's catchy! OK, we've got the slogan... How do we monetize this thing? (Well, there's no sense in being poor *as well as* p***ed off with the world! =;o} )

Also: I see the problem. Maybe a boilerplate disclaimer you slap at the top of each post would help? "I may not be ranting about what you think I'm ranting about. If unsure, please ask for clarification." Or something like that.

[HUG]

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

In general, I have no argument with you, but I do think you picked a bad illustrative example. As anyone who has been following Ben Goldacre's battle against the massed ranks of the homeopaths on the pages of The Guardian, The Lancet and his own Bad Science blog will now know, there have been a good many blind trials of homeopathy, all proving that there is nothing more at work here than the placebo effect.

Nothing to do with scepticism, you know, just evidence.

[khaosworks.livejournal.com]

If you've read my recent posts tagged as "bad science", you probably know my opinion about homeopathy: I think it's a load of cobblers, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't work for some people; the placebo effect is a scientifically proven phenomenon. It's just the claims (oy, the claims!) that I have trouble with and where those claims can sometimes stand in the way of more effective treatment and thus cause harm. If you're going to believe in something, more power to you: just get your premises correct or admit that they aren't. Intellectual sloppiness annoys me, in the same way that arrogance annoys you.

But as to arrogance and sneering... there are somethings that are just so egregious, some things that are just so plain out wrong that you can't help but just go, "Come on." I mean, there's room enough for argument between, say, Everett's Many World's Interpretation or the Copenhagen model of quantum mechanics, but if a person came up to you and said that he honest and for true believed that the world was flat and balanced on the back of a one-legged flamenco dancer from Barcelona, what would your reaction be? Perhaps you're a much better person than I am.

Now, I know that you don't necessarily believe in homeopathy (whatever that means), but for the record, here's my opinion. As far as I'm concerned, no one has ever been able to come up with a scintilla of evidence that homeopathy actually works as advertised and not because of the placebo effect. Now, I am perfectly willing to grant that it may be that I haven't come across that evidence yet, and if I come across a plausible explanation I might soften my view or change my mind. It's not that I want to sneer, mind. It's just that it's an involuntary reflex when faced by something incredulous or disingenuous for me to look on in slack-jawed disbelief.

But that's just me. I'm petty that way.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

if a person came up to you and said that he honest and for true believed that the world was flat and balanced on the back of a one-legged flamenco dancer from Barcelona, what would your reaction be?

Honestly? I'd be non-committal verging on interested, because belief systems are interesting in themselves, and then I'd move on. Not because I'm a better person than anyone else, but because my imperatives are arranged differently from those of others.

I am (if I'm anything at all) a maker of fiction, which (slightly harking back to an earlier imbroglio) in order to succeed must invite belief, if not compel it, for the duration of the fiction (at least). Other people are more concerned with truth, and I'm very glad they are, because someone has to be. You as a member of the legal profession, lil_shepherd through her passion for science, and many others, feel it is important that truth be universally acknowledged and false belief be discouraged. That's by no means petty. It just isn't the banner under which I happen to march.