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University of Toronto: Anti-vaccine Homeopathy Course Is Fine
The University of Toronto recently undertook an investigation of one of its courses, a bachelor-level health class that taught both anti-vaccination materials and the "science" of homeopathy. The investigation was undertaken because of complaints from professors and other scientific and medical experts. Surprisingly, the university concluded that the class was just fine. "Students taking (the course) ... are in their final year of study and are expected to approach controversial topics with a critical lens. The instructor reports that she provides these readings as the students have already seen the other side in previous courses." The course's syllabus is available for reading. It contains quotes like this: "There are broad concepts that bind various 'alternative' medical modalities together. Among these is the assertion that the human organism, which developed as an integrated unit in its formation, also functions as an integrated unit; that mind, body, and spirit are inextricably linked. Disorder or disturbance in any one of these areas can cause disease in another area."
Update: 07/13 14:14 GMT by S : Reader Gallenod points out that the University has now decided that the course will not be taught during the 2015-2016 academic year, or over the summer.
Update: 07/13 14:14 GMT by S : Reader Gallenod points out that the University has now decided that the course will not be taught during the 2015-2016 academic year, or over the summer.
As long as we get to coddle the carebears and don't show American Sniper and hold their hands through life and tell them everything will be okay, we can all be a big group of happy, warm-fuzzy, ignorant adult children.
I have no problem with a course teaching about what anti-vaccine supporters claim if it helps doctors debunk it in person and helps them dismantle it in person. I hope this is what it is about.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
Remember, it isn't "magic" if you say it's "quantum mechanics".
No it does not.
And as part of the "course goals":
Bullshit.
It's called the placebo effect.
No it's not. Theology doesn't study the natural world, and offers zero testable hypothesis. It's definitely useful knowledge, if one wishes to understand motivations of large groups of people, but it's no science.
All natural sciences have started from categorization of knowledge and a pursuit of ontology of some sort. In that sense, theology and other cultural studies can be approached scientifically as much as zoology or linguistics can be.
It is trivial to observe that the placebo effect occurs with a sugar pill or with a homeopathic remedy. If there is "quantum mechanics" involved, it is almost certainly not the mechanism described by homeopathy.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Describe the mechanism for "filtering of photons based on time of emission" and there is a Nobel Prize waiting for you.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Just to play devil's advocate here, declaring a problem solved because you've attributed it to the placebo effect isn't really good enough. The placebo effect is merely a name for something we don't understand.
For the sake of argument let's assume we don't understand the placebo effect (though that's really not true, but I'll play along).
We still have a known mechanism, called the placebo effect, by which people report to experiencing some health improvements in the absence of a physical mechanism. We also know of no plausible physical mechanism by which things like homeopathy can have an effect. And, in fact, when measured, their effects match exactly the effects of placebo.
So yes, we can absolutely say the problem of homeopathy is solved "because placebo", because studies have been done, there's absolutely no evidence at all that there's any difference (mechanism or effect) between homeopathy and placebo. Until someone comes up with a new physical mechanism that we can test, new studies specific to homeopathy will be pointless.
Now, you may want more study of the placebo effect, and that's probably reasonable.
I teach physics at a liberal arts college, I am totally on board with exposing students to cross-disciplinary ideas that go against accepted norms. So as I'm reading through the syllabus, I'm fine with things like this:
Sure, no problem, let's do a compare-and-contrast, it's popular enough that we need to be familiar with it whether we think it's baloney or not, and considerations of how states of mind affect states of health are real and useful. But then we hit page 2:
No. The author has no idea what quantum physics is, and is using it as a magic wand made of pure bullshit. Uttering the phrase "quantum physics" is, of course, a pretty common and cliched way to sound impressive without knowing anything, but it demonstrates that the "honest intellectual inquiry" thing is just a disguise, and the professor is here to sell snake oil.
Get the hell out of my ivory tower.
Actually, the placebo effect is something we DO understand, quite well in fact. Many studies have been done on it in quite some detail.
Welcome students, to this course delving deep into all the science that is the foundation of homeopathy.
Let's start.
No questions?
I have a question:
Assuming I've understood the concept correctly, and it's about water remembering, wouldn't the water coming out of the tap have once in it's life been in a continuous body of water that has already come into contact with every single possible contaminant, and therefore should cure every disease known to man?