Didn't mean it to come across that way, but I can see your beef. I never meant to insinuate that I don't believe your anecdote, because I certainly do. I respect you immensely, and generally take your claims as gospel. When I have failed to acquire enough personal experiences to make up my mind one way or the other on something as scientific (or at least potentially scientific) as practicing medicine, I defer to scientific consensus. Such was the case, in this instance. Is there something going with homeopathic medicine worth studying? Probably. So why aren't we doing so? $'s. Similar concept to medical marijuana. If the shit you need is growing/growable in your backyard, lovely capitalism has little incentive to fund studies. Am I wrong? Also worth noting; Just because I'm attacking homeopathy doesn't necessarily mean that I'll blindly defend western medicine. FDA approval doesn't mean shit, other than the company pushing the drug has a sizable reserve of money. We've killed handfuls of people after a drug "passed" clinical trials. My apologies if you felt that I was attacking you, your intelligence, or your story, because I had no such intention. I certainly did intend to attack the theories behind homeopathy, but not claims of results, here and there. Yesterday, I apologized to my mother for questioning her intentions of making me feel better. So at least I'm that far. I might look into this "magic vaseline", I've got a gnarly contusion brewing where the skimboard smacked into my shin on an incoming wave with some serious force. Like with most drugs, the best guinea pig for determining how it will affect me is... myself. P.S. [AltMedz2theXtreme] Ever been on CureZone, where people periodically tell others to drink their own piss? "Not feeling better yet? Keep drinking your own pee, it gets better before it gets worse." Yikes. Hope that never made it onto any subreddits. Edit: Ah, I can see how you thought I lumped you in with the average dumbdumb. My bad. Shouldn't multitask when I'm making an argument.Do you think maybe your rhetoric is unnecessarily vitriolic?
Found your problem. Here's some serious, take it at face value pragmatic rhetorical advice: When you have these conversations, your counterpart has already rejected scientific consensus. Not saying they've rejected it correctly. Not saying they've rejected it rationally. Not saying they've even rejected it calmly but the fact of the matter is, you think you're saying "double blind testing" but they're hearing "one plus one equals three BELIEVE IT INFIDEL." It will get you exactly nowhere. It will escalate things from dispassionate to ad hominem. And it will read, as it was surely intended, as a dismissive attempt to silence dissent. If you wanna get people back to "scientific consensus" territory you need to figure out where they stepped off the path first. For some people, it may be way the fuck back - my wife worked with a woman who rejected germ theory. For some people, it may be in the weeds - yeah, there have been a couple studies that insist echinacea does fuckall for colds, but nobody with a clue recommends echinacea pills for anything and they sure don't recommend them for colds. On the one hand, you're pre-pasteur. On the other hand, you're arguing about research protocols. In neither case does "dismissive" open a dialog. Arnica works best when you put it on immediately. I'm about 98% of the way to chalking that up to placebo effect, but I'm also the kinda guy that will gleefully leverage the placebo effect whenever possible, even on myself. Especially on myself. CureZone sounds like a frightening place. There's some truly batshit stuff out there, and "it gets worse before it gets better" has a long and storied tradition.When I have failed to acquire enough personal experiences to make up my mind one way or the other on something as scientific (or at least potentially scientific) as practicing medicine, I defer to scientific consensus.
I have, in fact, yelled "PLACEBO YOURSELF!" at someone before, don't remember who or why, only the juxta-oxy-whatever. I hope that it was directed at a close friend. Thanks for your time and insights. I will be heeding the vast majortity of your advice, if not all of it.