You probably thought science was simple; that’s what they taught you at school. You do a test, get a result and you have learned something about reality. Science is about the truth, right?
Wrong!
You do the test but if you get a result that disagrees with your prejudices, you throw out the truth and stick with what you believe. You just ignore anything different. That’s really a summary of modern science.
The Big Bang theory has been proved over and over and over to be false. But scientists won’t let it go. “It must be true,” they say and so ignore all the evidence to the contrary. There was a time in science when, if your theory had holes in it, you revised your theory. Not so today.
If you haven’t got the proof you want, then you just say, “we will find it” (like the Higgs boson). The Big Bang theory predicts dark matter, lots of it—but unfortunately, there isn’t any! Rather than look for a better explanation of reality, physicists are just hanging around waiting for dark matter to show up.
The twentieth and twenty first century are the times when truth in science is not valued but keeping your job and paying the mortgage is what motivates most scientists.
Those who don’t kowtow to the fashionable prejudice are often ruined financially. Science worked best when it was in the hands of European gentlemen of means. They didn’t care about money, they had pots of it, so the truth to them was what they found was real: the behavior of gases, metals, electricity, magnetism, evolution, etc. Lord Kelvin, Antoine LaVoisier and Charles Darwin are examples.
The world of quantum physics today has proved almost anything can happen and that all concepts of time and space we knew and loved are utterly false. Time can and does run backwards; space does not exist (it’s called non-locality); particles come into existence without any precursors and disappear just as amazingly; only one billionth of the universe is “stuff”, the rest is all just energy and information (not that anyone has the faintest idea what energy is, only that it changes things).
You would think that modern science, which has more or less dismantled the simplistic Newtonian view of reality, would look very favorably upon interesting phenomena of the mind that appear to also be in violation of the so-called laws of physics. Curiously, however, scientists living in the Alice in Wonderland world of quantum physics still rage about telepathy, telekinesis, prescience and so on.
These notions are fake, unscientific, delusory, “voodoo science”, to echo just a few of their derisory comments.
It doesn’t make sense. I’ve adopted a saying from a friend in England, Cyril Smith, who is fond out pointing out that advanced physics doesn’t just say that the strange things we encounter in holistic healing could happen, it says that they MUST happen!
But when it’s convenient, the critics just drop all pretense of science and shove their heads in the sand. They cherry-pick their “science”.
It’s been proven over and over that homeopathy works. There are incredibly robust studies. One famous 1994 double-blind randomized crossover trial showed homeopathy way outperformed the placebo. It was repeated three times. Yet the editor of The Lancet wrote these remarkable words: “…We must ask if the technique of randomized controlled trials is fundamentally flawed, and capable of producing evidence for effects that do not exist, by, for example, the effects of clinicians’ expectations of outcome transmitting by subtle effects that circumvent double blinding?”
In other words, he is saying, we know homeopathy is a fraud and this trial shows it works, so it might mean the double-blind randomized trials don’t really work1.
Is that prejudice? Bigotry? Or just plain stupidity?
And what about that old fart Edzard Ernst, who by some chicanery got himself appointed professor of complementary medicine at Exeter university (UK). He says, “These treatments are biologically implausible and the clinical tests have shown they don’t do anything at all in human beings.”2
Well, that makes him a liar, doesn’t it? He just ignores the Lancet study and stacks of evidence showing the efficacy of homeopathy (could you believe that Ernst was once a practicing homeopath who “changed his mind”, he says? Can you smell the money??)
In 2005, a report by economist Christopher Smallwood, personally commissioned by Prince Charles, claimed that complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) was cost-effective and should be available in the UK’s National Health Service. Ernst was initially enlisted as a collaborator on the report, but asked for his name to be removed after a sight of the draft report and Ernst described it as “complete misleading rubbish.”3
Ernst was, in turn, criticised by The Lancet editor Richard Horton for disclosing contents of the report while it was still in draft form. In a letter to The Times Horton wrote: “Professor Ernst seems to have broken every professional code of scientific behavior by disclosing correspondence referring to a document that is in the process of being reviewed and revised prior to publication. This breach of confidence is to be deplored.”4 So, we may know the true measure of the man. He bends whatever truth suits him but he accuses everyone else of doing that very thing. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Shakespeare had the queen say in Hamlet, Act III, scene II. It means: she gives away her guilt by ranting at others.
Fortunately this humbug was forced into retirement. Prince Charles’ private secretary, Sir Michael Peat, filed a complaint regarding breached confidentiality with Exeter University. Circumstances surrounding the ensuing University investigation led to Ernst’s resignation.
But his wicked dishonesty still lives on and is often quoted by those who need to oppose alternative medicines. As well as homeopathy, Ernst has attacked St John’s wort, hawthorn for congestive heart failure, acupuncture, aromatherapy, hypnosis, massage, music therapy, and relaxation, among other holistic therapies.5 All of these, he claims, have no proven value.
Professor of complementary and alternative medicine? Not.
1. Lancet 1994;344;1601- 06
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jul/21/pharmacists.homeophathy (yes, it is a misspelled word in the URL)
3. Paul Jump (23 June 2011). “Alternative outcomes”. Times Higher Education.
4. The Times, Monday 29th August, 2005
5. “Complementary therapies: The big con? – The Independent”. London. 2008-04-22. Retrieved 2010-05-01. NOW TAKEN DOWN!
I learnt another problem with drug trials.
Most are undertaken by drug manufacturers. When the trial appears to be giving unsatisfactory results the study is frequently aborted, so that it does not give a negative result, but is consigned to obscurity.
Apparently this, and other ‘errors’ in this sort of trial, accounts for a very large proportion of drug trials by manufacturers, thus skewing the results greatly in favour of the drug being tested, as only the satisfactory trials are published.
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Another medical practice, like surgery for cancer, can never be ‘placebo controlled’ so is not up to the standards which are claimed to be applied to all medical practice nowadays.
I think this is why medical “research” is so costly Mike.
They have to do it over and over, till they get a half result and can go to market 🙂
Am I a laymen or no??I know more about alternative
medacine than the average bear-I have done my own
research and applied what I have learned about baking
soda and I believe cancer is fungal.
Doc, you always astound me with the information you present and the questions that you bring up. This ‘The Humbug Of Science’ especially on the study of cosmology truly hits home. I have been working on a lecture on Cosmology leading to ‘the Battle for God in Science’. I present here a few thoughts about cosmology that I think you might agree with, and I will certainly love to hear your comments.
There is a great misunderstanding and ignorance about the universe and how we fit in to this great cosmos. The only cure for ignorance is knowledge, and knowledge takes effort. Once you have knowledge what do you do with it? “Self knowledge without self change is self abuse”.
There are two roads, two schools of thought in science before us, and we have a choice of which direction we choose, for it will affect all our lives in many ways. Science has departed from the traditional aspects of empirical studies produced by an experiment or observation. This is no more evident than in present studies in Cosmology. We have the study of cosmology that has been high jacked by mathematicians.
Despite the warnings of physicists that are working with plasma and cosmology scientists, who base their knowledge on empirical, objective, observable, predictable, duplicable-in-the-lab knowledge, science has now been taken over by theoretical mathematicians. It is they who now dominate the entire field of cosmology with their abstract, exotic, hypothetical mathematical models that fail to be proven in any lab! This mathematical path has led them to conceive of a universe that is devoid of God. It is only math and laws of mathematics, and how those numbers are being manipulated! It would be suicidal for any scientists to breach the subject and discuss God and how all those laws came to be in the first place. It had to be the laws that were created first and put in place before anything else was created for anything to work or manifest.
There are 4 basic principles that most conventional scientists all embrace and the entire foundation of science and cosmology rests on: 1. Gravity Rules the Universe; 2. Space is a Vacuum; there is no aether; 3. Nothing travels faster than the Speed of Light; 4. Hubble’s’ Constant, regarding the expansion of the Universe. These principles are the bedrock that present science relies on, and is the entire basis of physics today. To this date, the hypothetical mathematical models of the Big Bang, and the expanding universe of dark matter, and dark energy, and black holes, all remain mysterious, completely undetected and unproven. These 4 principles are the entire basis of the physics of cosmology as taught today and they are wrong.
According to Steven Hawking in his new book ‘The Grand Design’, building on theories from Einstein and all of the other orthodox theoretical mathematical physicists, states that the universe is ruled by gravity, and that all of space is an empty vacuum with no attributes, and all bodies that exist floating in this space vacuum are neutral in charge. His end conclusion leads him to a concept that ‘because there is such a law as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing’. It leads him to the final statement; ‘You don’t need God for the creation of the Universe’. The entire universe created, from out of nothing, this makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? He takes this concept and expands it to encompass all that students are taught today in the sciences. He also does it in such a way, that to disagree is paramount to academic suicide.
The proper foundation is electromagnetism, electrified plasma and the aether with all its laws created and put in place in the beginning. By just how and by what, we call God! I maintain that the universe is the very signature of God.
Atheism. The belief that there was nothing, and nothing happened to nothing. Then nothing magically exploded, for no reason, creating everything. Then a bunch of everything magically rearranged itself, for no reason whatsoever, into self-replicating bits that then turned into dinosaurs, continuing to replicate and here we are. Makes perfect sense doesn’t it?
We have the question; of the two schools of thought in science which do we choose? In which direction shall we go, theoretical mathematics or empirical science, the gravity universe or the electric universe? When explained in its fullest, they lead to either an ‘Atheistic based’ or God based foundation of thought.
I believe that scientists will come kicking and screaming to the truth due to the Hubble and other spaced based telescopes. Check out Galaxy M81 and M82 that are traveling 4 times the speed of light, only one example of the changing laws of those 4 principles in science.
Doc, thank you for all of the thoughtful information that you present.
P.S. In further research I am coming to believe in your position on raw milk. You make me check on my own knowledge and I thank you for that.
Doctor Keith;
As an electronics engineer, I was always surprised when people argued about whether homeopathy works or not. It seemed rather obvious to me being very familiar with electromagnetics, that homeopathy is a field phenomena, and not a chemical one. The medium or very carefully created mediums can store electomagnetic signatures, of the chemical atoms or molecules, and you should be able to take all the molecules out of the solution and if you don’t disturb the medium, the signature will still be there. And that is what provides the health or healing properties. It is a field phenomena. And by the way, some of your statements you made about quantum physics are very sloppy. They are somewhat true and false(ie dark matter, space doesn’t exist , time can run backwards)——————these need proper qualifications, or they can be easily misunderstood by lay personnel————-which you don’t provide.
Dave
This is not a blog about cosmology or quantum physics, Dave.
It’s about unscrupulous falsehoods against alternative therapies; and I did provide references for that.
Then why make such grand statements to support a weak argument to support homeopathy? Please provide evidence for the big bang theory being proved false. If you are going to make such claims you really need to back them up.
Don’t understand this strange comment. I did supply a reference for the homeopathy remark.
As to the Big Bang: you can cart with the article in Nature journal, 1988 The Big Bang Is Dead (that was the title)
From there go on and read “The Big Bang Never Happened” by Eric Lerner (book).
After that you are on your own.
One of the handful (8) of studies that the recent Lancet meta-study on homeopathy, relied on was a trial of 400 runners given homeopathic Arnica to prevent post-race bruising and soreness (aka DOM, delayed onset muscle pain). They gave it credence because it was a large trial. But anyone who actually knows homeopathy would realize its flawed premise: homeopathic prescribing has to be individualized based on the actual symptoms expressed by the patient; this remedy was given at the end of the race before symptoms arose without individualization; homeopathic remedies (and all drugs) can cause symptoms; it might have actually caused a proving set of symptoms in some people, prevented the arnica-type symptom picture in others, and had no effect in others for whom it was entirely inappropriate. Not surprising that the summary of this poorly designed study might be: homeopathy has no effect. Even though for some of those runners it might have been very effective. The large double blind studies so beloved by the medical establishment are difficult to do with homeopathy because of the individualization required. Its not one-size-fits-all medicine.
I should clarify that the Lancet meta-study purportedly showed that homeopathy did not work. But it relied on a very small select group of studies. One of their major criteria for inclusion was the size of the study (number of subjects). Last I heard they would not reveal which studies were chosen. The only one that I know of is the runners DOM study. If the others are similar, the misunderstanding of or perhaps prejudice against homeopathy is apparent.
Anyone wanting to thoroughly understand the inherent and introduced flaws in so-called “controlled clinical trials” should read Harris Coulter’s very clear and concise book “The Controlled Clinical Trial, an analysis” which is available for download at:
http://www.aipro.info/drive/File/The%20controlled%20clinical%20trial,%20an%20analysis%20-%20di%20H.%20Coulter,%2031%2007%2011.pdf
I compiled and sent these out last June. Relevance? Manipulated science, spin and corrupt regulators.
http://illawarraartists.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/gmo-science.pdf
http://illawarraartists.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/aspartame-science.pdf
I can only assume that these posts are perused for appropriateness, perhaps before others can see them because my last post with the two links was removed. If that’s the case then I might regard this as a message to you Dr Keith, not intended to remain here and that question goes to understanding why you removed my post??
Some explanation sent to the provided email address would be much appreciated. Thank you!
Sorry, I’ve just noticed that it still awaits moderation which was not shown until my last submission was made. Naturally, this and the last post can be excluded.
Those links are nothing new to you I’m sure but they are reasonably comprehensive for when I compiled them and might serve as useful for referencing for someone?
I got one of your books by the way. Cancer Research Secrets. Unfortunately not in time to save a friend. Hopefully I’ll be prepared next time. Thanks Keith!
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