Slashdot Mirror
13 Things That Do Not Make Sense
thpr writes "New Scientist is reporting on 13 things which do not make sense. It's an interesting article about 13 areas in which observations do not line up with current theory. From the placebo effect to dark matter, it's a list of areas in need of additional research. Explanations could lead to significant breakthroughs... or at least new and different errors in scientific observations. Now there are 20 interesting problems for Slashdotters to work on, once you combine these with the seven Millennium Problems!"
Here's the Slashdot story on the study that seemed to discredit the placebo effect.
Two groups of test subjects. Tell Group A the usual story, some people are getting placebos while others are getting the real thing and no one knows who's who. Tell group B everyone's getting a placebo. Give everyone placebos, and see if the pills being taken by group A have any effect.
Remember the days when Republicans were the party of fiscal responsibility?
Why not include the Columbia prayer study? Oh, yea, because it's been thoroughly discredited. Just like the Belfast study will be soon enough.
One million dollars says homeopathy is a placebo. Do you want to argue with it?
I thought the homeopathic test was performed on white blood cells in a solution - not in a body, leaving no possibility for the mind to affect it.
"Pursuit of happiness", a reference to Locke's "pursuit of property", was a principle stated in the Declaration of Independence, a document that has no bearing on US law.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
This article sort of looked like bullshit to me, especially the cold fusion part. Notice how they hint that cold fusion has been replicated, but don't actually go out and say so. Then they quote an "Engineer" saying the evidence is strong, like they couldn't find any scientist that would support their claim. So I asked at the Straight Dope Message Board about the cold fusion, and got some interesting answers. What I learned basically confirmed that (to the knowledge of that fairly well informed board), yes, cold fusion still is unlikely and unreplicated.
Methadone will get them high, just not as high, and the effects last longer, so a new high isn't sought quite as fast. It's also deliverable via tablet for the same effect, which is much safer and less expensive than intravenous delivery. However, it is, as you mention, extremely addictive, and it's important to watch patients closely, as withdrawal from it is still extremely painful, and can last longer than heroin withdrawal.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
Because he's confident, he doesn't put her on a pedestal, and doesn't let her walk over him, unlike the hundred other guys who turned into idiots when they saw her.
Seriously, this is not a troll, read this:
Why 'Nice guys' are such losers
For an a normal drug test there are two types of test. The one you do in labor (first on cells culture then later on cobaye animals) and later the one you do under hospital condition (on human). I am roughly simplyfying here. Those hospital test mostly consists in double blind experiment if possible (the patient do not know what they get, some get nothing (water/sugar) other get the substance, and neither the patient nor the experimentor at the starts know who is given what, only after the experiment is finished the experimentor can check from a reference number that this was the drug or sugar), or in the case where it is not humanly possible (for example cancer drug) where a live depends on it, then a simple hospital trial.
In the case of homeopathy this NEVER depend on life, but since this is only sugar (for any dilution beyond Avogadro number) they do not need the labor trial and can be tested directly on double blind. Fact is, all study I know of in double blind , the group getting the drug and the group getting nothing did not show any statistical difference. In other word their body reacted as if they got nothing (which they did... Since beyond 20CH I think , you have no active molecule). In other word in double blind nobody has yet of today proved that homeopathy worked. Ever.
Now there are a serie of controversial experiment where ONE attempt to dilue some allergen substance, and then after enough dilution to ahve nothing of the alergen in the end liquid, attempt to make it react with Basophile (the so called bevenist experiment). Up until now all of those experiment yelding positive result where either downright fraud, or sloppy experimental design (forget to clean up, or bad dilution processes). And seriously I doubt any new results will change that. This would be a MAJOR news for all physiker (physicist?)...
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
The BBC program "Science and Nature" had an episode on BBC Two, which was called "Homeopathy: The Test" which first aired last year on Tuesday 26 November, 9pm.
t hytrans.shtml
The results of a controlled, random, double-blind study were that the effect did not actually exist.
Here's the link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/horizon/2002/homeopa
I think what we are seeing here is a six month editorial lead time on articles in New Scientist (giving their research department the benefit of the doubt).
-- Terry
The last test I saw for a time-variable alpha was John Bahcall looking at the ratio of [O III] 4959 to 5007 emission in Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasars, which found no change. The high-z absorption line studies by the Australian group failed to convince me anything was really going on. Shouldn't have been one of the 13.
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
Not long ago (in 2002), there was a very good, very scientific test done by Horizon on the BBC using the very same technique.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2512105.stm
It seems that part of the problem in the Belfast findings may be due to the fact that the cells that had a reaction were manually counted, possibly introducting a bias known as "the experimenter effect", of which little is really known apart from the fact that it exists (a bit like the placebo effect).
There is little doubt that the experimenter acted in good faith, but the fact was that the very controlled experiment commissioned by the Horizon (involving the Royal Society and a number of specialists in various relevant fields) ended up showing a statistical no-greater-than-chance result.
Now, before you say "how can you trust a TV show", I'll say that Horizon is no ordinary TV show. It's probably the best, most balanced and scientific accurate show ever to grace the screen. Those who are lucky enough to be able to watch it will probably agree.
There is another large scale experiment being done at the moment on homeopathy, invoving both homeopaths, scientists and people like James Randi.
Randi predicted that the experiment will show no more than we already know today, that homeopathy is not worth much as a medical practice, but that most believer will be undeterred by any amount of evidence.
The real question to test a practitionner of alternative medecine is to ask: what would it take you to admit that it doesn't work?
For many, nothing will.
But it's worth investigating anyway, I'm ready to consider that there is some benefit to it if tangible, undisputable proof was found. It would certainly help to use homeopathy if its field of action -if there is any- was actually well known, and if it is doing better there than other types of medecine. http://www.homeowatch.org/
Used to be delivered by bottle. As in cough syrup.
LRC, the best-read libertarian site on the web
You post is inaccurate because:
* It invokes The "God of the Gaps" Argument.
This argument has the form:
* There is a gap in scientific knowledge.
* Therefore, the things in this gap are best explained as acts of God.
This is not based in logic. It is simply a statement of pessimism about the future progress of science.
Down through the centuries, science has eliminated a great many of its gaps. People who had used the Gap argument were embarrassed, since their God shrank in power with each new scientific advance. For example, after the work of Galileo and Newton, it was no longer thought that angels pushed the planets across the heavens.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
as a doctor working in the field of substance misuse i need to clarify this:
Methadone does come in an injectable form but the oral preparation is safer in terms of number of fatal overdoses
Methadone also doesn't give people the euphoria that heroin gives them.
Some people develope an addiction to heroin specifically becoause they get addicted to the euphoria, others develop their habit because they don't like the withdrawal effects. This second group tend to achieve maintenance and reduction of the chaos in their lives on methadone and once they have achieved the necessary psychological and social infrastructure necessary to withdraw then they can have their doseage reduced to zero. Those who seek the euphoric affect tend to use methadone to remove the withdrawl effects but continue to use illicit drugs on top of this in order to achive their high. This group may well be able to have their addiction controlled more successfully with injectable diamorphine (heroin). Various european countries are exploring this option and 2 pilot projects have been set up in the UK in order to research this very point. Once the results of these have been audited then policy as a whole will change. Almost all substance misusing people who approach drug dependency services do so with the aim of coming off drugs but it has to be done in a safe and controlled manner to attempt to try and put mechanisms in place for them to address the reasons why they became addicted in the first place.