"Homeopathy is perhaps the most obviously absurd medical pseudoscience. It is also widely studied, and has been clearly shown to not work. Homeopathy is a placebo
Placebos often work quite well compared to doing nothing. I have always viewed homeopathy as a good way for doctors to prescribe placebos when that was the medically best option. I think it's a shame that this option is being taken away.
Surely that's just doctors being lazy?
Why not say "there's nothing physically wrong with you, maybe you should consider psychotherapy?"
Natural medicines tend to be effective when the subject has a sensitive body (achieved and sustained by healthy habits including daily exercise, near or vegetarian diet (maybe a vegan diet), not smoking, minimal or no drinking, eating healthy foods including plenty of fruits and vegetables (preferably with minimal pesticides), perhaps a regular meditation practice.
Translation: if you're a fucking hippy, you'll believe in fucking hippy bollocks.
People will indulge in homeopathy, chiropractery and crystal healing. OK, they're not the sharpest knives in the drawer, but do you think banning these things will help? How's that worked out for drugs? Or cigarettes? Those have disappeared. Right? Oh, wait, they haven't.
For all these things, put the warnings on the label and let Darwin take care of the rest.
You don't need to ban homeopathic preparations, since they are completely harmless (ineffective). All you need to do is cover them by "false advertising" rules or laws. Same with crystal healing, which is also potentially dangerous when it stops people getting actual medical advice.
Chiropractors are positively dangerous, as their manipulations can actually cause problems, so I would cover them under "common assault" or "attempted murder" laws, and certainly not allow them to pass themselves off as doctors.
It is amazing how much effect the mind has over the body. I'm not saying placebos can cure cancer but if you got people to believe things like backaches, migraines, ulcers, etc when there are no signs of injury could be cured. I had horrible backaches until I read a book by Dr Sarno and realized it was all in my head. When I figured out I was repressing anger it all went away. That might have been a placebo as well but it worked wonders.
You can treat mental health problems without recourse to pseudo-science.
The problem is that some people, called homeopaths, make a living out of it and that it is close to a fraud. Profits don't fund medical science. Profits fund homeopaths and corporations developing the pills. And worse, they do not admit it is a placebo.
I think I explicitly mentioned they should be labelled as such!
No one's going to buy a jar of coloured water marked "flavoured water, placebo only, no medical effects whatsoever" and still believe it's going to cure their problems.
A doctor handing out harmless placebo pills to a neurotic but genuinely upset patient is one thing, encouraging fraudulent pseudo-science is something else entirely.
If I'm feeling down and I take a placebo pill, It's likely I'll feel great again.
So what?
The problem is when someone has a sore stomach, "treats" it homeopathically then dies a few months later from stomach cancer because they didn't bother going to a real doctor.
shouldnt individuals have the right to do dumb things if they choose and are not hurting anyone but themselves???
If there is something wrong with you and you are being "treated" by homeopathy, then you quite likely are huting yourself by omission.
At the very least, there should be no official encouragement of this fraud, and no indication that it is legitimate medicine, it encourages the fraudsters to pray on the vulnerable.
And I don't have any problem with making that illegal, although I know blah blah evil government interference.
The synopsis reads like a poorly written press release from an illiterate goat herder trying to promote his personal blog. Slashdot should be ashamed of putting this in its front page.
Slashdot would post a glowing review of Mein Kampf as long as it mentioned the word Uber enough.
My takeaway was that if there are people in the world who can coin words like "allegorithm" we are misdirecting the War on Terror. It's not ISIL who are going to cause the Downfall of Western Civilization.
Yeah, it is weird how HR types have such a hard on for Office skills.
It's just a way of weeding out people who are either so stupid that they couldn't cope with their school Powerpoint lessons, or so arrogant that they think they are above mundane tasks like formatting reports in an acceptable manner..
Excel is pretty good at doing a quick sanity check on a CSV before handing it to an importer. These tools would not have survived as long as they have or be considered as indispensable as they are without being at least marginally useful.
Only if you only use the comma to separate your fields. I use an export from a database that has commas in the fields so I use the pipe (|) as my delimiter. Excel will not properly open that csv file and will only split the fields on the commas. Open/Libre Office let me select the delimiter - best feature ever.
Untrue. Excel will open a text file using any symbol of your choice as a delimiter. Maybe old versions didn't use to be able to or something.
I also note that in the UK, ownership of a tank is perfectly legal. It has to be demilitarized (the gun barrel(s) filled with concrete, that sort of thing), but it can be managed, if you're rich enough. Saw an article the other day about some guy who uses his Scimitar light tank to drive to town to get groceries....
Once you take the main gun and any associated machine guns of a tank, it just becomes a cramped van with appalling fuel and track consumption.
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Placebos often work quite well compared to doing nothing. I have always viewed homeopathy as a good way for doctors to prescribe placebos when that was the medically best option. I think it's a shame that this option is being taken away.
Surely that's just doctors being lazy?
Why not say "there's nothing physically wrong with you, maybe you should consider psychotherapy?"
Natural medicines tend to be effective when the subject has a sensitive body (achieved and sustained by healthy habits including daily exercise, near or vegetarian diet (maybe a vegan diet), not smoking, minimal or no drinking, eating healthy foods including plenty of fruits and vegetables (preferably with minimal pesticides), perhaps a regular meditation practice.
Translation: if you're a fucking hippy, you'll believe in fucking hippy bollocks.
Doctors would not prescribe homeopathy but do they do that now anyway?
Yes, that's the problem. Here in the UK, homeopathy has been available on the NHS.
in the case of homeopathic medicine, that really isn't the case, its real intent is to do no harm, and to make use of the placebo effect.
Bullshit, homeopathic practitioners do not say this at all. Their mumbo jumbo is based on a (perhaps even genuine held) belief that homeopathy works.
Remove placebo sugar pills and people are going to die as a result.
Die of what?
People will indulge in homeopathy, chiropractery and crystal healing. OK, they're not the sharpest knives in the drawer, but do you think banning these things will help? How's that worked out for drugs? Or cigarettes? Those have disappeared. Right? Oh, wait, they haven't.
For all these things, put the warnings on the label and let Darwin take care of the rest.
You don't need to ban homeopathic preparations, since they are completely harmless (ineffective). All you need to do is cover them by "false advertising" rules or laws. Same with crystal healing, which is also potentially dangerous when it stops people getting actual medical advice.
Chiropractors are positively dangerous, as their manipulations can actually cause problems, so I would cover them under "common assault" or "attempted murder" laws, and certainly not allow them to pass themselves off as doctors.
It is amazing how much effect the mind has over the body. I'm not saying placebos can cure cancer but if you got people to believe things like backaches, migraines, ulcers, etc when there are no signs of injury could be cured. I had horrible backaches until I read a book by Dr Sarno and realized it was all in my head. When I figured out I was repressing anger it all went away. That might have been a placebo as well but it worked wonders.
You can treat mental health problems without recourse to pseudo-science.
The problem is that some people, called homeopaths, make a living out of it and that it is close to a fraud. Profits don't fund medical science. Profits fund homeopaths and corporations developing the pills. And worse, they do not admit it is a placebo.
No, it is not close to a fraud. It IS a fraud.
I think I explicitly mentioned they should be labelled as such!
No one's going to buy a jar of coloured water marked "flavoured water, placebo only, no medical effects whatsoever" and still believe it's going to cure their problems.
A doctor handing out harmless placebo pills to a neurotic but genuinely upset patient is one thing, encouraging fraudulent pseudo-science is something else entirely.
If I'm feeling down and I take a placebo pill, It's likely I'll feel great again.
So what?
The problem is when someone has a sore stomach, "treats" it homeopathically then dies a few months later from stomach cancer because they didn't bother going to a real doctor.
> At that point, these sellers are defrauding others.
How is that different from, oh I don't know, ALL advertising?
Most advertisers just make people waste money. Homeopathy might well prevent them from seeking proper medical help.
Homeopathy is murder.
shouldnt individuals have the right to do dumb things if they choose and are not hurting anyone but themselves???
If there is something wrong with you and you are being "treated" by homeopathy, then you quite likely are huting yourself by omission.
At the very least, there should be no official encouragement of this fraud, and no indication that it is legitimate medicine, it encourages the fraudsters to pray on the vulnerable.
And I don't have any problem with making that illegal, although I know blah blah evil government interference.
Inconceivable!
The synopsis reads like a poorly written press release from an illiterate goat herder trying to promote his personal blog. Slashdot should be ashamed of putting this in its front page.
Slashdot would post a glowing review of Mein Kampf as long as it mentioned the word Uber enough.
What is this article supposed to tell me?
My takeaway was that if there are people in the world who can coin words like "allegorithm" we are misdirecting the War on Terror. It's not ISIL who are going to cause the Downfall of Western Civilization.
Only on Slashdot will you find the Linux sysadmin who is a blacksmith in his spare time. Great post btw =)
I think it's safe to assume that unironically stupid facial hair is involved somehow?
Yeah, it is weird how HR types have such a hard on for Office skills.
It's just a way of weeding out people who are either so stupid that they couldn't cope with their school Powerpoint lessons, or so arrogant that they think they are above mundane tasks like formatting reports in an acceptable manner..
Excel is pretty good at doing a quick sanity check on a CSV before handing it to an importer. These tools would not have survived as long as they have or be considered as indispensable as they are without being at least marginally useful.
Only if you only use the comma to separate your fields. I use an export from a database that has commas in the fields so I use the pipe (|) as my delimiter. Excel will not properly open that csv file and will only split the fields on the commas. Open/Libre Office let me select the delimiter - best feature ever.
Untrue. Excel will open a text file using any symbol of your choice as a delimiter. Maybe old versions didn't use to be able to or something.
I've never encountered a 3rd party plugin for Excel at any company I've ever worked for.
Most people simply don't use it that hard.
Yes, obviously because you don't use something, then no one else does.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
It is. The word "fanboy" is never a compliment, except for narcissistic obsessive losers who order their life around one product.
It is already underway subtly as most revolts start, did you see the Occupy $x protests?
Judging by what I read on US sites like slashdot, there is very little political overlap between Occupy protesters and Gun rights people.
I'm not responsible for other people's fear.
Sociopaths aren't responsible for anything. That's the problem.
I'm not responsible for other people's fear.
Much more importantly, my rights are not subject to revocation due to other peoples' fear.
Yeah, I'm sure that the right to bear arms really means the right to own a tank, assault helicopter or nuclear weapon.
I also note that in the UK, ownership of a tank is perfectly legal. It has to be demilitarized (the gun barrel(s) filled with concrete, that sort of thing), but it can be managed, if you're rich enough. Saw an article the other day about some guy who uses his Scimitar light tank to drive to town to get groceries....
Once you take the main gun and any associated machine guns of a tank, it just becomes a cramped van with appalling fuel and track consumption.
Since he was willing to donate it as some form of legal aid, I'm assuming it was relatively insiginficant.
He lives there most of the time and has quite a nice house there.
Most countries have residence rules. The Isle of Man has to act legit since it's British, even though technically it's not in the UK.