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Topic: Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology (Read 19143 times) previous topic - next topic
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Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Wow never heard that one about the holocaust (not in the MSM, just from kooks). I always say too how can believers in, say, astrology, can use things like GPS systems, and computers, and even cars and planes when the same laws that make them work invalidate their beliefs. Of course, it's a rhetorical question.

I heard from a co-worker once how his brother who is a cop said that the full-moon nights are crazy for him. I'm pretty sure that if you stand next to a car, that would exert more gravitational pull on you than the freaking moon!

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #1 –
Quote from: andy o on
I heard from a co-worker once how his brother who is a cop said that the full-moon nights are crazy for him. I'm pretty sure that if you stand next to a car, that would exert more gravitational pull on you than the freaking moon!

Sorry, but a lot of things DO vary with the phase of the moon, including criminal activity. It has nothing to do with gravity or anything mysterious, but with the illumination at night.

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #3 –
Quote from: pdq on
Quote from: andy o on
I heard from a co-worker once how his brother who is a cop said that the full-moon nights are crazy for him. I'm pretty sure that if you stand next to a car, that would exert more gravitational pull on you than the freaking moon!

Sorry, but a lot of things DO vary with the phase of the moon, including criminal activity. It has nothing to do with gravity or anything mysterious, but with the illumination at night.

Scepticism is a virtue ideed, as long as it doesn't come down to some short-sighted positivism. The human organism has incredible complex hormonal regulation systems (no, not only woman ) and some of them actually seem to be aligned to moon phases for whatever evolutionary reason. I won't be that dismissive to homoeopathy as well - it's a very efficient way of activating psychosomatic forces and costs very little compared to real drugs. The downside is, though, that you'll have to believe in it. I think medical science could learn from homoeopathy how to take much better advantage of the placebo effect. After all, we aren't just some kind of chemical reactors and reductionist methodology will always fail when it comes to the relation between physis and mind.

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #4 –
Your rationalizations for homeopathy can be said for any other superstition. Placebo works, and no skeptic worth their salt denies it. It's the dishonesty and scamming that's the problem. That's why doctors generally won't treat with placebos, cause even though they can work, it's unethical to fool the patient, and it can be detrimental in the long run, for example the patient losing trust.

About the full moon thing, first, the ones making the extraordinary claims must come with the evidence. This claim: "The human organism has incredible complex hormonal regulation systems and some of them actually seem to be aligned to moon phases for whatever evolutionary reason", do you have evidence for? Do you even have a mechanism for how it could work?

And does it increase criminal activity? TOS8 please. Even if it was due to plain illumination, wouldn't the new moon do this instead? I don't think so either way, anyway. In any case, the full-moonists always do cite tides and some animals changing their behavior. Tides are due to gravity indeed, and animals aren't affected by any mysterious force, they just use the light for guidance (moths) and such other mundane explanations that don't apply to humans.

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #5 –
There was certain evidence of a male period at the ESA's mars500 mission where analysis of the participant's urine tests showed an 28 day period in the level of certain hormones. At least it is an extraordinary coincicence that both the female and the male period are of the same duration as a moon period.

However, I'd never claim any causal effects whatsoever without empiric evidence. My point is that we should show some, well, humility concerning such a complex and wondrous system an an organism. It can't be compared with a machine. The latter is sythetically constructed on the basis of well known physical priciples and in turn can be understood entirely by rational analysis. The former is product of an largely unknown evolutionary history spanning millions of years, making it "mundane" in a much deeper sense than you probably had in mind. From this history emerge at least some kind of organisms beeing host to an intrinsic quality we call consciousness (for which I don't need to read Descartes to have evidence for ), which is clearly something that defies all rational understanding.

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #6 –
Quote from: andy o on
And does it increase criminal activity? TOS8 please. Even if it was due to plain illumination, wouldn't the new moon do this instead? I don't think so either way, anyway. In any case, the full-moonists always do cite tides and some animals changing their behavior. Tides are due to gravity indeed, and animals aren't affected by any mysterious force, they just use the light for guidance (moths) and such other mundane explanations that don't apply to humans.


How could the light of even a full moon compete with the streetlights that blanket all our high crime areas?  Go downtown or to a strip mall around here and you have to look hard even to see the full moon for gosh sakes!

Also tides are not really due to gravity alone.  Gravity is only one of the proximate causes, the other being a spatially extended body, and you can't have a tidal effect without both being present.  As has been pointed out, the tidal effect of the moon on a human body is swamped by the tidal effect of pretty well any nearby body, such as a bed, or a house, or even your computer keyboard.

 

Ed Seedhouse
VA7SDH

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #7 –
Non-audio discussion about placebo so soon?  I guess the original topic doesn't have enough gravity.

Instead of making claims about the pull of your keyboard, show us the math.

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #8 –
Quote from: greynol on
Instead of making claims about the pull of your keyboard, show us the math.

I've just carried out a brief experiment with my wired PC keyboard and discovered that it exerts and equal and opposing force to being pulled on when reaching the extent of the cable length until the plug pulls out of the PC. Any help?

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #9 –
Believe it or not, I was actually serious.

I'm also interested in knowing exactly what laws that brought us GPS invalidate homeopathy.

It's pretty funny watching scientific-minded people pretend to dismiss woo with "facts".

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #10 –
Assuming a keyboard of 1 kilogram at a distance of 1 meter, the moon's mass is 7.36x10^22 greater and its distance is 3.8x10^8 times greater.

Since gravity varies as the square of the distance, the moon's force on you is approximately 500,000 times greater than that of your keyboard.

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #11 –
So the moon's effect on my own criminal behaviour will 2.500.000 times greater than that of my keyboard (it's only 200gr). But what if I am a desk-criminal?

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #12 –
Quote from: pdq on
Since gravity varies as the square of the distance...


But tidal forces don't.  Tides are not gravity but a secondary effect of gravity on extended bodies, and they do not obey the square root law you assume.  I'll leave it to you to do the proper research, but it's at least nice to see someone trying to bring some actual math into the discussions.  Good for you on that part.
Ed Seedhouse
VA7SDH

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #13 –
Quote from: greynol on
Believe it or not, I was actually serious.

I'm also interested in knowing exactly what laws that brought us GPS invalidate homeopathy.

It's pretty funny watching scientific-minded people pretend to dismiss woo with "facts".

I did say astrology, not homeopathy. But physics in general make homeopathy all but impossible as well. Or just common sense.

And I said stand next to a car, not one meter from your keyboard. Gosh!

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #14 –
Quote from: andy o on
And I said stand next to a car, not one meter from your keyboard. Gosh!

You're not the only one in this discussion failing (if not completely unable) to substantiate his flippant remarks.

Quote from: andy o on
But physics in general make homeopathy all but impossible as well.

Do tell...

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #15 –
Quote from: greynol on
Quote from: andy o on
And I said stand next to a car, not one meter from your keyboard. Gosh!



However if we stick at 1 kilogram at 1 meter simplified, so:

The moon's mass is, according to Greynol, 7.36x10^22 times greater.  He gives the distance ratio as 3.8*10^8.  However tidal forces vary as the cube root of the distance, not the square root as for simple gravity.

"The tidal force is much like gravity, but it drops with the cube of the distance."

So my spreadsheet says that the tidal force of equal mass bodies at those distance differentitals will be 1.8*10^-26 lower for the one at the moon's distance (cube root of 1/23.8*10^8), and if we multiply that by the mass differential given above, the ratio will be 1.34 *10^-3  in favour of the one kilogram object at one meter from my head.  That is the nearby 1 kilogram mass will have 134 times as much tidal effect on my head as the moon, using Greynol's estimates for the moon.

At least assuming I still remember how to use a spreadsheet properly at my advanced age.

Edited to reflect the fact that on the first stab I couldn't do that very well....

...
Ed Seedhouse
VA7SDH

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #16 –
Hey, I'm not the one making the grandiose claims here. "Flippant"? Maybe, and I'm sorry if I come across like that. I just mentioned innocently a full moon incident, I didn't expect anyone here to give credence to that that it would evolve into a super OT discussion, so I apologize for that as well. Neither to homeopathy. Are you serious though, I mean do you think there's something to homeopathy or are you just annoyed at our "flippant" attitude? Anyway.

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #17 –
Quote from: Ed Seedhouse on
Quote from: greynol on
Quote from: andy o on
And I said stand next to a car, not one meter from your keyboard. Gosh!



However if we stick at 1 pound at 1 foot for the keyboard the calculations are simplified, so:

The moon's mass is, according to Greynol, 7.36x10^22 times greater.  At 240,000 miles or so it's distance is then about 1.27*10^9 greater.  However tidal forces vary as the cube root of the distance, not the square root as for simple gravity.

"The tidal force is much like gravity, but it drops with the cube of the distance."

So my spreadsheet says that the tidal force of equal mass bodies at those distance differentitals will be 4.91*10^-28 lower for the one at the moon's distance (cube root of 1/2.7*10^9), and if we multiply that by the mass differential given above, the ratio will be 3.62 *10^-5  in favour of the one pound object at one foot from my head.

At least assuming I still remember how to use a spreadsheet properly at my advanced age.

...

Yeah, and all this is a distraction anyway... even if the moon's tidal force were "felt" subconsciously by the body, it still doesn't explain how it can increase criminal activity or change behavior one specific way or another.

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #18 –
Quote from: andy o on
Hey, I'm not the one making the grandiose claims here.

Yes, as a matter of fact, you are making grandiose claims:
Quote
I always say too how can believers in, say, astrology, can use things like GPS systems, and computers, and even cars and planes when the same laws that make them work invalidate their beliefs.

Following your misapplication of TOS8, shouldn't you also be held to the same standard?

Quote from: andy o on
Are you serious though, I mean do you think there's something to homeopathy or are you just annoyed at our "flippant" attitude?

To be blunt it's the hypocrisy.

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #19 –
Quote from: andy o on
Yeah, and all this is a distraction anyway... even if the moon's tidal force were "felt" subconsciously by the body, it still doesn't explain how it can increase criminal activity or change behavior one specific way or another.


True, and of course there is really nothing to explain since properly controlled studies of this "effect" have indeed been done, and none of them show any such effect.


Ed Seedhouse
VA7SDH

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #20 –
oh, great. I just did homeopathy. Would you like me to do astrology as well or should we just leave it at that? What's so grandiose about physics invalidating it, and physics making all those other things work?

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #21 –
LOL, you didn't "just do homeopathy", you gave me a link that only addresses some of the misguided notions put forth as to how it's supposed to work.  It doesn't disprove the possibility that it might work for other reasons, perhaps those that have not yet been identified.  But yes, please tell me how physics disproves astrology.  Are you going to claim that it disproves the existence of god, or the beliefs of atheists next?  Tell me how it disproves my preference for the color green.

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #22 –
Hey, I'm not touching god. What about that article on homeopathy I linked did you not think disproves it reasonably? And seriously (again)? Astrology and physics are compatible with each other? I think you're just running on snark right now.

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #23 –
Quote from: andy o on
Astrology and physics are compatible with each other?
No less compatible than god (or no god) and physics.

Quote from: andy o on
I think you're just running on snark right now.
Yes and IMO you deserve a big can of snark right now.

Science completely invalidates homeopathy and astrology

Reply #24 –
OK then, if that's how you feel. You're the boss. I don't think for a minute you believe in homeopathy or astrology, so there's only one outcome of you sending me to wild goose chases for specific information to explain it to you why they don't work as their proponents say and why they're invalidated by science. You won't be convinced of something you already know.