IS Forum
Forum Index Register Members List Events Mark Forums Read Help

Go Back   International Skeptics Forum » Reference » Forum Spotlight
 


Welcome to the International Skeptics Forum, where we discuss skepticism, critical thinking, the paranormal and science in a friendly but lively way. You are currently viewing the forum as a guest, which means you are missing out on discussing matters that are of interest to you. Please consider registering so you can gain full use of the forum features and interact with other Members. Registration is simple, fast and free! Click here to register today.
Reply
Old 24th December 2005, 05:31 PM   #121
Roadtoad
Bufo Caminus Inedibilis
 
Roadtoad's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Citrus Heights, CA
Posts: 15,468
Whoa. Wait a loooooong second.

Even if I had unlimited resources of time and money, there's no way in hell I'd ever go with a homeopathic regimen. For one thing, why would you waste any resource, regardless of its supply? That's just plain stupid.

For another, consider that your actions have an impact on others. Prince Charles and his imbecilic remarks about homeopathy have, no doubt, led others to think there's something right with drinking tap water that's had its "memory" tweaked, or taking megadoses of vitamins. Everyone has a certain amount of influence with people, and trying to cure yourself of a fatal disease with psuedoscientific methods only suggests to those same people that there's something acceptable in this.

Ultimately, you wind up creating the wholly false impression that this regimen has any effectiveness against cancer. This will lead some poor schmoo who has even less in the way of resources to you to empty their bank account and ultimately surrender their lives for the sake of someone else's greed. Bad idea.

Sorry. I think homeopathy should be outlawed, or at least parked in the back seat where it belongs.
Roadtoad is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 24th December 2005, 07:40 PM   #122
bruto
Penultimate Amazing
 
bruto's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Way way north of Diddy Wah Diddy
Posts: 36,136
Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
I think homeopathy would be the choice for anyone who has unlimited time to which to experiment.

But if you were ultimately given a death sentence of like 6 months to live, I think you would realize that whole grain breads, organic water, magnets, accupuncture, Vitamin C, Omega -3, etc., etc., is not going to extinguish the raging inferno within you. Perhaps if one lived a life of this stuff before the disease, perhaps no disease. But only perhaps. There are other factors where good diets and excercize aren't going to guarantee you a healthful life of 100 years.

Kevin Trudeau's claim that reversing your ph balance can actually prevent and REVERSE existing cancer is quite the bolsterous claim. Either it can or it can't. But if I had cancer, I would indeed try to look into that claim quite seriously. But, it does sound like a stretch, that something so easy could cure it. I think someone posted regarding this (on an original Kevin Trudeau thread a few months? back), that if you achieved that ph balance reversal, that then you would die of THAT.

I know a neighbor that has cancer in his lungs, liver and shoulder. Any one of these cancers could have killed him. He actually went into remission for quite a while after standard medical treatment. They aren't looking for him to make it though. But, I believe he would have been dead already if it weren't for those standard treatments he has gotten.

I am fascinated by "remission". I can't understand what causes the cancer to shut down for a while, then restart up. You would think that medical science would have found the cause (of remission) and used this to solve the cure, long ago, because of some clue, regarding remissions. Could it be that there is an oscillation effect where the tumors need and get a lot of blood?...and then the blood supply can't keep up with the tumor(s) after a while?...so the tumor stops growing?...but then collaterals develop and the tumor gets more blood once again, and so the cancer takes off once again? I have heard that some of the lastest tumor fighting drugs are those that supress blood flow to the tumor.

I have to agree with Roadtoad on this one. Just because I expect to live another 30 or 40 years, I am not going to spend half of that learning to like the taste of urine either, just because some mystics think it's good for me. Many people have experimented with homeopathy and other quack cures in the long and short terms, and it's not gotten any better. Real scientific medicine, despite its occasional shortcomings, does get better.

In the case of cancer, since early intervention is one of the most important factors in success, I would never waste my time on quackery even if my illness was relatively slow acting.

I also think you have to make a distinction between the healthy living that helps us to fend off disease, and the reverse idea that quacks often tout that presence of a disease like cancer proves that you did something wrong (and of course they know what it is). Those religious meddlers who try to tell you god is mad at you and you should pray the thing away are in the same class. If you live a healthy life and have a good attitude, you will probably improve your odds of not getting some diseases, and you will probably improve your odds of surviving the ones you get, but some people will get these things anyway, no matter what they do.
__________________
Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Molière)

A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi)
bruto is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 24th December 2005, 10:18 PM   #123
epepke
Philosopher
 
epepke's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Posts: 9,264
Originally Posted by Diamond View Post
The rate for spontaneous remission from cancer is about 4%

Those are really poor odds.
They're still large enough to convince a lot of reality-challenged people that stuffing beet slivers in your nostrils or learning how to do the Hokey-Pokey backward cures cancer.
__________________
"It probably came from a sticky dark planet far, far away."
- Godzilla versus Hedora

"There's no evidence that the 9-11 attacks (whoever did them) were deliberately attacking civilians. On the contrary the targets appear to have been chosen as military."
-DavidByron
epepke is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 12:42 AM   #124
Blue Mountain
Resident Skeptical Hobbit
 
Blue Mountain's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Waging war on woo-woo in Winnipeg
Posts: 7,600
Exclamation A Very Personal Account For Sure

Well, the paper is certainly a personal one! I for one prefer to keep my writing at a more impersonal level. However, I'm not sure which approach makes more of an impact. It may depend on your target audience.

The arguments you make are sound, and the examples drawn from your own experience are powerful. But phrases such as "Are you really such a half-wit, mouth breathing moron as to believe that BS?" could well cause some of your audience to stop reading right there.

You also tripped over "its" vs "it's" on page 6. (Sorry, it's the grammar panda bear in me.)

On a side note, I believe Big Pharma are not so much interested in "keeping us sick" as they are interested in finding new and inventive ways to make us believe we are sick so as to sell us more medication. Very often it seems new drugs are an answer in search of a question rather than the other way around.
Blue Mountain is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 07:13 AM   #125
brodski
Tea-Time toad
 
brodski's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 15,516
Originally Posted by Blue Mountain View Post
On a side note, I believe Big Pharma are not so much interested in "keeping us sick" as they are interested in finding new and inventive ways to make us believe we are sick so as to sell us more medication. Very often it seems new drugs are an answer in search of a question rather than the other way around.
You touch on a valid criticism of the pharmaceutical industry here, in that resources are directed to research based on a profit motive rather than actual need. For instance in recent years more has been spent on research into anti impotence drugs than anti malarial drugs, as there is a greater demand for the former in wealth nations, though the impact on overall human well being would be helped much more by the latter.

However there are enough real medical conditions which are currently untreatable to provide a good enough market for real medicine, without inventing new conditions. Also, consider that real medicine, in many countries, has to prove itself effective (as well as safe) in order to be licensed, you'll have a job proving that your treatments is effective against a condition, if you can't show that any of your test subjects actually had the condition in the first place.

The real growth industry for new conditions is in SCAM practitioners, as it always has been. Whereas you can o to your GP and be given a clean bill of health, I don't think a homeopath has ever met a healthy person!
A woo will always be able;l to find a "condition" to "treat", that's the wonderful thing abou placebo, its even more effective against imaginary diseases than real ones!

(edited beceasue I can't type, or spell)
brodski is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 09:08 AM   #126
fyslee
Student
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 32
Originally Posted by fowlsound View Post
It's when you take the sCAM instead of traditional medicine that is offensive.
Even when you take it at the same time, when it comes to cancer, it'll decrease your survival chances by 30%.

To find this statistic (since I can't post links yet) you'll have to do this Google search:

"The Quack-Files: Cancer Survival & Alternative Medicine"

That will take you to the page on my website.
fyslee is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 09:14 AM   #127
fyslee
Student
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 32
Originally Posted by fowlsound View Post
It's when you take the sCAM instead of traditional medicine that is offensive.
For more about the acronym sCAM (ALWAYS spelled with a small "s"....;-), do this search:

"The Quack-Files" "scam commitment"
fyslee is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 09:23 AM   #128
brodski
Tea-Time toad
 
brodski's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 15,516
Originally Posted by fyslee View Post
Even when you take it at the same time, when it comes to cancer, it'll decrease your survival chances by 30%.

To find this statistic (since I can't post links yet) you'll have to do this Google search:

"The Quack-Files: Cancer Survival & Alternative Medicine"

That will take you to the page on my website.
Here you go Fyslee, & welcoem to the forum!

http://www.geocities.com/healthbase/cancer_norway.html

or

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Citation


I've only read the adstracts, but does the paper claim that Suuplemtary, Complementary and Alternitive Medice (S.C.A.M- its allwasy usefull to ahve an excuse to include the "s") actualy harms you in ways oterh than drainbign your wallet? Or is it that those who fall under teh spell of tehse conmen are either
A) allready desperite in other words they are allready the are the worst cases, or
B) delaying real treatment and plaicign theri fith in whale music and vitimin C?
brodski is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 01:15 PM   #129
fyslee
Student
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 32
Originally Posted by brodski View Post
I've only read the adstracts, but does the paper claim that Suuplemtary, Complementary and Alternitive Medice (S.C.A.M- its allwasy usefull to ahve an excuse to include the "s") actualy harms you in ways oterh than drainbign your wallet? Or is it that those who fall under teh spell of tehse conmen are either
A) allready desperite in other words they are allready the are the worst cases, or
B) delaying real treatment and plaicign theri fith in whale music and vitimin C?
It depends on what form of sCAM is used. Some are definitely harmful, while most are most likely benign. From an ethical and economic standpoint they are unjustified. I suspect that the mentality of many users of sCAM methods leads them to put off seeking proper help, which itself would worsen their prognosis. Whatever the case, it isn't proven that using sCAM improves their prognosis in any way. While feeling empowered, more relaxed, and more peaceful, aren't bad things at all (quality of life is a many factored matter....), they likewise have no proven effect on their prognosis.
fyslee is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 01:33 PM   #130
fyslee
Student
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 32
Hi Fowlsound,

I have posted a link to your story at "Confessions of a Quackbuster".

Regards,

Paul Lee, PT
fyslee is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 02:44 PM   #131
Iamme
Philosopher
 
Iamme's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 6,215
Originally Posted by bruto View Post
I have to agree with Roadtoad on this one. Just because I expect to live another 30 or 40 years............................................. ... I would never waste my time on quackery even if my illness was relatively slow acting.
But for one to sort thru what is quackery and what isn't, is the $64,000 question.

There is a health center somewheres in the US that believes they can clean out your arteries for you, by chelation. Chelation is used to remove heavy metals from a person also. Yet some, regard the artery cleaning by chelation as quakery. But IS it?

And then you hear of these quack clinics that give statistics claiming high cure rates.

You get to where you don't know who or what to believe, regarding this stuff.

Some have said that coral calcium is quakery. Yet, there is SOME reason why Okanawans live so long. And I'll bet it's not because they are being filled with prescription drugs. If you are eating the right food (whatever that is) and breathing clean air, and drinking food water, and excercizing in some reasonable fashion (I doubt these people run marathons everyday)...I think there is a melding of that line drawn in the sand as to where homeopathy/unusual diets start, and where quakery takes off from there.

If one engages in some natural remedy, it may work because the immunde system is stronger while engaged in this behavior. So it becomes a two-fold process for the good. Not only from the standpoint that you are taking into your body that which nourishes it best, but that you are strengthening the bodies ability to ward off disease..and cancer. Obviodsly, these people must not have a lot of early fatal cancers, etiher. (They probably don't eat foods with injected hormones galore, or eat weiners with nirtrates/nitrites in them, etc.)

Maybe Googling Mexican homeopathic clinics will yield some good reading.
__________________
I lost my mind many years ago and it hasn't affected me a bit...a bit..a bit..a bit.
Iamme is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 02:58 PM   #132
Iamme
Philosopher
 
Iamme's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 6,215
Originally Posted by Blue Mountain View Post

On a side note, I believe Big Pharma are not so much interested in "keeping us sick" as they are interested in finding new and inventive ways to make us believe we are sick so as to sell us more medication. Very often it seems new drugs are an answer in search of a question rather than the other way around.
This is what Kevin Trudeau says. So...do you believe in what he says then?
__________________
I lost my mind many years ago and it hasn't affected me a bit...a bit..a bit..a bit.
Iamme is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 03:05 PM   #133
Mojo
Mostly harmless
 
Mojo's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Nor Flanden
Posts: 38,418
Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
But for one to sort thru what is quackery and what isn't, is the $64,000 question.
We have a method that can accomplish this: double-blinded placebo controlled trials.

Have any properly controlled trials of the therapies you mention been carried out? If so, what were the results? Anything that is demonstrated to work will be rapidly adopted by the medical profession in general, not just carried out by "a health center somewheres in the US".

Someone* posted a joke on the forum recently:

Q: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
A: Medicine.

*Sorry, I can't remember who it was.
__________________
"You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield

"The poor mystic homeopaths feel like petted house-cats thrown at high flood on the breaking ice." - Leon Trotsky
Mojo is online now   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 03:20 PM   #134
Roadtoad
Bufo Caminus Inedibilis
 
Roadtoad's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Citrus Heights, CA
Posts: 15,468
Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
But for one to sort thru what is quackery and what isn't, is the $64,000 question.
See Mojo's answer to this.

Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
There is a health center somewheres in the US that believes they can clean out your arteries for you, by chelation. Chelation is used to remove heavy metals from a person also. Yet some, regard the artery cleaning by chelation as quakery. But IS it?
If my doctor wouldn't recommend it, and my doctor is someone I can trust, why would I try this? I'm not sufficient versed in science, unfortunately, but anything that sounds like mumbo-jumbo, I'm checking with someone who is so versed.

Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
And then you hear of these quack clinics that give statistics claiming high cure rates.
When I put a bid out for work to be done, either professionally or personally, the first thing I do is toss out anyone whose bid is too high or too low. Either one will screw you. Anyone making a claim for a high cure rate, without someone operating on the outside auditing those claims, will not have me on their doorstep anytime soon.

Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
You get to where you don't know who or what to believe, regarding this stuff.
It's simple. Find someone you can trust first. They can help you through it.

Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
Some have said that coral calcium is quakery. Yet, there is SOME reason why Okanawans live so long. And I'll bet it's not because they are being filled with prescription drugs. If you are eating the right food (whatever that is) and breathing clean air, and drinking food water, and excercizing in some reasonable fashion (I doubt these people run marathons everyday)...I think there is a melding of that line drawn in the sand as to where homeopathy/unusual diets start, and where quakery takes off from there.
Considering the number of medical researchers and MD's who have said the coral calcium nonsense is BS, and they have the training and skill to know why it's BS, I'd say at that point that knowing where the quackery starts is easier and easier to find. And Homeopathy and Unusual Diets fall well within that range.

Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
If one engages in some natural remedy, it may work because the immunde system is stronger while engaged in this behavior. So it becomes a two-fold process for the good. Not only from the standpoint that you are taking into your body that which nourishes it best, but that you are strengthening the bodies ability to ward off disease..and cancer. Obviodsly, these people must not have a lot of early fatal cancers, etiher. (They probably don't eat foods with injected hormones galore, or eat weiners with nirtrates/nitrites in them, etc.)
Sorry, but your statement ignores the reality that lifespans are growing, and there's little evidence hormones and nitrates/nitrites have caused cancer, from what I can see. I eat natural foods when I can find them because 1.) I like sustainable agriculture, and 2.) I like the taste better. I've yet to run across solid evidence that natural foods and that sort of thing is necessarily better from a medical standpoint.

Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
Maybe Googling Mexican homeopathic clinics will yield some good reading.
So will a visit to an adult bookstore, but I wouldn't take their advice on how to preserve my marriage.
Roadtoad is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 03:45 PM   #135
Iamme
Philosopher
 
Iamme's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 6,215
Roadtoad:
If my doctor wouldn't recommend it, and my doctor is someone I can trust, why would I try this? I'm not sufficient versed in science, unfortunately, but anything that sounds like mumbo-jumbo, I'm checking with someone who is so versed.

Iamme:
But coming form Kevin Trudeau's school of thinking...the doctors are taught the way they teach doctors; to use pills and to operate. The status quo, for the last hundred years or whatever.

Your doctor could very well mean well, but be outside the loop in anything that isn't endorsed by the MDA.

I am old enough to have learned within MY occupation that there are a lot of people out there, who you even think are pros...who are specialists, who they themnselves don't have all the answers, or have simply overlooked things. They only work with what they have been taught in and know about. And even THEN they don't know it all.
And some people are just plain sharper than others.
__________________
I lost my mind many years ago and it hasn't affected me a bit...a bit..a bit..a bit.
Iamme is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 03:57 PM   #136
Iamme
Philosopher
 
Iamme's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 6,215
Roadtoad:
Sorry, but your statement ignores the reality that lifespans are growing, and there's little evidence hormones and nitrates/nitrites have caused cancer, from what I can see. I eat natural foods when I can find them because 1.) I like sustainable agriculture, and 2.) I like the taste better. I've yet to run across solid evidence that natural foods and that sort of thing is necessarily better from a medical standpoint.

Iamme:
But common sense will you that anything that deviates from our genetic makeup and it's evolutionary trail of how we got to where we are at (and this don't include eating chickens that are artificially matured in weeks), or nitrates, etc....could very well be a cause for cancer. I think most cancers are caused by irritants at the cellular level. Therefore the idea to stay clear of irritants would be common sense.

If a person had a slow growing cancer, let's say. One where a person had some time to make some deciisons. You mean you would not want to first look at some of the other options besides chemo and radiation which very well may cure you of your cancer, but then cause a new cancer because of THAT some years down the road? Wouldn't you be tempted to get ahold of a quack clinic and see if they had, let's say, some famous clients, who you could personally contact, at least?

Of course I'm not so stupid and gullible to just take the clinics word for their claims.
__________________
I lost my mind many years ago and it hasn't affected me a bit...a bit..a bit..a bit.
Iamme is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 04:07 PM   #137
bruto
Penultimate Amazing
 
bruto's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Way way north of Diddy Wah Diddy
Posts: 36,136
Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
Roadtoad:
Sorry, but your statement ignores the reality that lifespans are growing, and there's little evidence hormones and nitrates/nitrites have caused cancer, from what I can see. I eat natural foods when I can find them because 1.) I like sustainable agriculture, and 2.) I like the taste better. I've yet to run across solid evidence that natural foods and that sort of thing is necessarily better from a medical standpoint.

Iamme:
But common sense will you that anything that deviates from our genetic makeup and it's evolutionary trail of how we got to where we are at (and this don't include eating chickens that are artificially matured in weeks), or nitrates, etc....could very well be a cause for cancer. I think most cancers are caused by irritants at the cellular level. Therefore the idea to stay clear of irritants would be common sense.

If a person had a slow growing cancer, let's say. One where a person had some time to make some deciisons. You mean you would not want to first look at some of the other options besides chemo and radiation which very well may cure you of your cancer, but then cause a new cancer because of THAT some years down the road? Wouldn't you be tempted to get ahold of a quack clinic and see if they had, let's say, some famous clients, who you could personally contact, at least?

Of course I'm not so stupid and gullible to just take the clinics word for their claims.

If I had a slow growing cancer I would certainly not go to some quack clinic and ask for references from survivors. All I would get from that is anecdotal evidence. I would try some research to see if the practices of that quack clinic had been subjected to scientific testing, and if so, what that testing revealed. I would immediately discard any that have refused to do scientific testing or to publish results that can be reviewed and critiqued by other scientists That is not "forbidden science," that's no science at all.
__________________
Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Molière)

A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi)
bruto is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 04:54 PM   #138
Iamme
Philosopher
 
Iamme's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 6,215
Bruto - You raise a good point. I suppose it's feasible that even the person sent home as being cured, for example, really may not be cured, but just thinks they are. So if I called or wrote that person, I would not really know what the truth is. Hmmmm. I guess I would have to tell the clinic that I have skeptical concerns and I'd have to see how they could show me that all these people are being cured better than the conventional way, and just see what kind of an answer I get. Maybe a legitimate place would say that some independent testing facility verifies some of their most remarkable cases, or something.

You hear an awful lot from the homeopathy field that the reason for going for their approach is so that they can bolster your immune system to help fight the cancer. (As opposed to chemo and radiation that is supposed to destroy it, albeit supposedly they too give you stuff to help your immune system...at least now...but it wasn't always this way, I don't think...so maybe they got this out of the book on homeopathy?) I guess one would have to research if that(immune system building) really does any good or not.
__________________
I lost my mind many years ago and it hasn't affected me a bit...a bit..a bit..a bit.
Iamme is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 05:05 PM   #139
Mojo
Mostly harmless
 
Mojo's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Nor Flanden
Posts: 38,418
Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
I guess I would have to tell the clinic that I have skeptical concerns and I'd have to see how they could show me that all these people are being cured better than the conventional way, and just see what kind of an answer I get.
What you need for this is properly controlled testing, with properly published results. If the answer you get doesn't include properly controlled trials and peer review, don't trust it.
Quote:
Maybe a legitimate place would say that some independent testing facility verifies some of their most remarkable cases, or something.
There's no point in asking about "their most remarkable cases". You'll just get a few cherry-picked examples at best.

What you need to find out is whether patients receiving the treatment do better than patients who do not receive the treatment, and if so whether the treatment works better than other available treatments.

For this you need properly controlled trials.
__________________
"You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield

"The poor mystic homeopaths feel like petted house-cats thrown at high flood on the breaking ice." - Leon Trotsky
Mojo is online now   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 05:16 PM   #140
brodski
Tea-Time toad
 
brodski's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 15,516
Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
Iamme:
But coming form Kevin Trudeau's school of thinking...the doctors are taught the way they teach doctors; to use pills and to operate. The status quo, for the last hundred years or whatever.

Your doctor could very well mean well, but be outside the loop in anything that isn't endorsed by the MDA. .
Thats why research papers are published, after peer review, and then if the results appears significant (in both the statistical and practical sense of the word) the experiments are replicated. anyone who can afford to subscribe to a medical journal can see the research and evaluate it for themselves. Dr's "show their working", quacks don't. Dr's may be stuck in their ways in some respects, but if you can provide proper evidence for your medical claims, then the medical world will change its mind (did you follow the news around the recent Nobel prize for medicine?)
medicine today employs basically the same epistemology as medicine 100 years ago, but i dosent employ the same practical methods, unlike for instance homeopathy or herbalism, which are immune to changes based on newly arising evidence, as they are immune to evidence.

Also remember, when it comes to cancer "big pharma" conspiracy theories really, really, really don't hold up, as there are large well funded charities conducting research in the treatment of cancer, they are not motivated by profit, but by a desire to conquer this terrible disease.

Originally Posted by Iamme View Post

But common sense will you that anything that deviates from our genetic makeup and it's evolutionary trail of how we got to where we are at (and this don't include eating chickens that are artificially matured in weeks), or nitrates, etc....could very well be a cause for cancer. I think most cancers are caused by irritants at the cellular level. Therefore the idea to stay clear of irritants would be common sense. .
Common sense will also tell you that in a vacume a bowling ball will fall faster than a feather, all other things being equal. In fact they fall at the same rate, thats why experimental evidence trumps "common sense".

medicine relies on evidence, not "gut feelings" "common sense" or folklore.

You are making two claims here
1) Cancer is caused by "irritants at a cellular level"
2) "artificial" foods cause said irritation. Can you cite evidence for either?



Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
If a person had a slow growing cancer, let's say. One where a person had some time to make some deciisons. You mean you would not want to first look at some of the other options besides chemo and radiation which very well may cure you of your cancer, but then cause a new cancer because of THAT some years down the road? Wouldn't you be tempted to get ahold of a quack clinic and see if they had, let's say, some famous clients, who you could personally contact, at least?
fyslee has posted evidence that shows that those people who choose SCAM for cancer treatment, even if they start conventional treatment at the same time ARE LESS LIKLEY TO LIVE than those who use only conventional treatments.
SCAM not only wasts your time and money, but using it appease to REDUCE YOUR LONG TERM SURVIVAL RATE. Still seem like a good choice?


Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
Of course I'm not so stupid and gullible to just take the clinics word for their claims
Yet you acknowledge that you respect some aspects of the medical philosophy of a rat-bag who has been convicted for making fraudulent health claims?

You are right not to take the clinics claims for their treatments, ask for citations of published, peer reviewed research from a respectable journal. Abstracts are available for free on PubMed. I've studded no science since I was 16, but I've managed to get a hood ides of how to read a paper and asses werther it reaches trustworthy conclusions or not, most people have the capacity to do this, but many cant be bothered.

thats the difference between skepticism and woo, woos say "trust us", skeptics say "look at the reliable evidence, then trust yourself".
brodski is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 05:34 PM   #141
brodski
Tea-Time toad
 
brodski's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Posts: 15,516
Originally Posted by Iamme View Post

You hear an awful lot from the homeopathy field that the reason for going for their approach is so that they can bolster your immune system to help fight the cancer. (As opposed to chemo and radiation that is supposed to destroy it, albeit supposedly they too give you stuff to help your immune system...at least now...but it wasn't always this way, I don't think...so maybe they got this out of the book on homeopathy?) I guess one would have to research if that(immune system building) really does any good or not.
You hear an awful lot from the homeopathy field period. A lot of it self contradictory.
Anyway, the questions you have to ask are

do those using homeopathy get better more often than patients not using homeopathy?

do those using homeopathy get better more quickly than patients not using homeopathy?

and

do those using homeopathy stay well for longer than patients not using homeopathy?

until you can answer "yes" to any of these questions the "hows" and "whys" don't come into it, you may as well speculate on how Santa can deliver so many presents around the world in one night.

So far all the reliable, replicable evidence points to a very big "NO" no
to the three questions I asked.

Homeopathy has had over 200 years to prove itself, it has constantly failed, how much longer should we bother testing it for before we finally declare that there is nothing to find?


Oh and I can honestly say that so far real medicine has learned NOTING from homeopathy, cos homeopathy has nothing useful to teach!
brodski is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 06:30 PM   #142
John Jackson
Muse
 
John Jackson's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 664
Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
Wouldn't you be tempted to get ahold of a quack clinic and see if they had, let's say, some famous clients, who you could personally contact, at least?
1) Can you not see the obvious fallacy there?

2) Can you not see the obvious bias inherent in that approach?
__________________

John Jackson is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 25th December 2005, 07:30 PM   #143
bruto
Penultimate Amazing
 
bruto's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Way way north of Diddy Wah Diddy
Posts: 36,136
Originally Posted by Iamme View Post
Bruto - You raise a good point. I suppose it's feasible that even the person sent home as being cured, for example, really may not be cured, but just thinks they are. So if I called or wrote that person, I would not really know what the truth is. Hmmmm. I guess I would have to tell the clinic that I have skeptical concerns and I'd have to see how they could show me that all these people are being cured better than the conventional way, and just see what kind of an answer I get. Maybe a legitimate place would say that some independent testing facility verifies some of their most remarkable cases, or something.

You hear an awful lot from the homeopathy field that the reason for going for their approach is so that they can bolster your immune system to help fight the cancer. (As opposed to chemo and radiation that is supposed to destroy it, albeit supposedly they too give you stuff to help your immune system...at least now...but it wasn't always this way, I don't think...so maybe they got this out of the book on homeopathy?) I guess one would have to research if that(immune system building) really does any good or not.
It's not just the question of whether someone has actually been cured, or just enjoys a long remission. It's also the question of whether the supposed remissions from quack cures can be attributed to the quack cures, and whether the percentage of these is in any way better than that achieved with placebo or no treatment at all. I think if you went to one of those clinics and voiced your skeptical concerns, you'd probably get the kind of nonsense we read about constantly from homeopathists and other quacks, dodging the issue and speaking mumbo-jumbo. Of course I might be wrong about that. Asking is free.

Researching whether immune system building does any good would be one step, but another, and I should think, just as critical, step, would be to research whether homeopathy, to pick an obvious example, actually acts on the immune system. I could, for example, suggest the relatively plausible sounding theory that improving the quality of your gasoline would improve performance of your car, but you'd be a fool if, believing that, you bought my magical elixir which consists of water that has had a jug of gasoline placed next to it.
__________________
Like many humorless and indignant people, he is hard on everybody but himself, and does not perceive it when he fails his own ideal (Molière)

A pedant is a man who studies a vacuum through instruments that allow him to draw cross-sections of the details (John Ciardi)
bruto is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 26th December 2005, 12:13 AM   #144
Ducky
Guest
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
Originally Posted by fyslee View Post
Hi Fowlsound,

I have posted a link to your story at "Confessions of a Quackbuster".

Regards,

Paul Lee, PT
Hey thanks!

What's the link? (ETA: Nevermind, I found it in your listed homepage. Thanks again!)


Welcome to the forum.
Ducky is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 26th December 2005, 12:18 AM   #145
Ducky
Guest
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
Originally Posted by Blue Mountain View Post
Well, the paper is certainly a personal one! I for one prefer to keep my writing at a more impersonal level. However, I'm not sure which approach makes more of an impact. It may depend on your target audience.

The arguments you make are sound, and the examples drawn from your own experience are powerful. But phrases such as "Are you really such a half-wit, mouth breathing moron as to believe that BS?" could well cause some of your audience to stop reading right there.

You also tripped over "its" vs "it's" on page 6. (Sorry, it's the grammar panda bear in me.)

On a side note, I believe Big Pharma are not so much interested in "keeping us sick" as they are interested in finding new and inventive ways to make us believe we are sick so as to sell us more medication. Very often it seems new drugs are an answer in search of a question rather than the other way around.


It was never intended to be anything but a personal account.

I'll have to fix those grammar mistakes, thanks for pointing them out.

If some off the audience stops reading because of strong language, that's not my concern. I put down my thoughts, they are to be taken as they are. If I worried about what everyone else wanted in content, I would end up with a rather stale and impersonal personal account.

if sCAM can use personal accounts, so can the rational people. The difference is there is evidence supporting rational arguments, and sCAM has no supporting evidence.
Ducky is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 27th December 2005, 04:52 PM   #146
love
Scholar
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 116
Smile

Originally Posted by Roadtoad View Post
Whoa. Wait a loooooong second.

Even if I had unlimited resources of time and money, there's no way in hell I'd ever go with a homeopathic regimen. For one thing, why would you waste any resource, regardless of its supply?
Curiosity. And the belief that if you try things out, you might learn something, or experience something new and fun.

When I started investigating homeopathy, I tested my worldview against reality. I thought that there were not any double-blind trials that showed homeopathy to be effective. How could there be?

What I found was that there were such trials. It was evident my worldview was in error. There was evidence in support of homeopathy working.

I began to trust expert opinions less and less. Especially when they say things like: "There is no evidence that homeopathy works". I realised they were back-constructing reality from their beliefs, rather than actually knowing that there was no evidence. Just like I had done.

I guess after that I became more and more "woo" as I read, researched and experienced more.

I feel my belief system to be a lot more coherent and consistent than it was before, although it has radically changed. The conspiracy theories made me a bit paranoid for a while, but I have a more positive perspective on them now. I am certainly a lot more relaxed.

Looking back on the past two years, I have experienced incredible things. I have swum with dolphins, cured phobias and traumas, stood in front of an oncoming train, been "possessed" by a ghost on a ghost hunt, met my "soul-mate", and trained with many people who I would have only otherwise seen on TV. Yes, I'm about as "woo" as they come, and I enjoy it.

Of course, I could have found out that all homeopaths talk nonsense and had a hilarious time laughing at their explanations as to why nothing was happenning. I did not have a large investment in the outcome.

It was the act of doing something for fun that made it work for me.
love is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 27th December 2005, 04:57 PM   #147
Ducky
Guest
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
Originally Posted by love View Post
Yes, I'm about as "woo" as they come, and I enjoy it.

Of course, I could have found out that all homeopaths talk nonsense and had a hilarious time laughing at their explanations as to why nothing was happenning. I did not have a large investment in the outcome.

So you weren't actually investigating anything scientifically, you were mucking about. The fact that you weren't actually sick allows you to dabble in unproven methods and confirm your own bias.

Great. That has absolutely no medical value whatsoever, and furthermore is a nice example why those who do not persue scientific study of medical treatments should stay the heck away from the sick.

Call me when you have a peer reviewed paper based on double blind study.
Ducky is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 27th December 2005, 05:31 PM   #148
Spidey13
Pastor of Muppets
 
Spidey13's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2005
Posts: 3,457
Originally Posted by love View Post
Curiosity. And the belief that if you try things out, you might learn something, or experience something new and fun.
Yes, fun should be your top priority for trying to beat cancer.

Quote:
When I started investigating homeopathy, I tested my worldview against reality. I thought that there were not any double-blind trials that showed homeopathy to be effective. How could there be?

What I found was that there were such trials. It was evident my worldview was in error. There was evidence in support of homeopathy working.
Source?

Quote:
I have...stood in front of an oncoming train...
Why did you move?
__________________
"I love you like a fat kid love cake." - 50 Cent
Spidey13 is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 27th December 2005, 06:29 PM   #149
Jeff Wagg
Illuminator
 
Jeff Wagg's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Chicago
Posts: 3,112
Originally Posted by love View Post
I feel my belief system to be a lot more coherent and consistent than it was before, although it has radically changed.
Yes, that's what happens when you stop thinking...everything starts to make sense.
Jeff Wagg is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 27th December 2005, 07:08 PM   #150
Ducky
Guest
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
Originally Posted by Jeff Wagg View Post
Yes, that's what happens when you stop thinking...everything starts to make sense.


I wish Jeff would post more often. He rocks me with his wit and wisdom.



(ETA: that was not sarcasm.)
Ducky is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 27th December 2005, 08:31 PM   #151
John Jackson
Muse
 
John Jackson's Avatar
 
Join Date: May 2005
Posts: 664
Originally Posted by love View Post
Looking back on the past two years, I have experienced incredible things. I have swum with dolphins, cured phobias and traumas, stood in front of an oncoming train, been "possessed" by a ghost on a ghost hunt, met my "soul-mate", and trained with many people who I would have only otherwise seen on TV. Yes, I'm about as "woo" as they come, and I enjoy it.
That answers every question that I could have asked.

Thanks again for contrasting reality so well.
__________________

John Jackson is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 27th December 2005, 08:37 PM   #152
Roadtoad
Bufo Caminus Inedibilis
 
Roadtoad's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Citrus Heights, CA
Posts: 15,468
Originally Posted by love View Post
Curiosity. And the belief that if you try things out, you might learn something, or experience something new and fun.
If I want to learn something new and fun, I go to the library and check out books. I buy books. I ask friends about books they've read. And when I read them, I try to apply critical thinking to what I'm reading. I don't go around engaging in pseudoscience and putting the lives of innocent people at risk.

Originally Posted by love View Post
When I started investigating homeopathy, I tested my worldview against reality. I thought that there were not any double-blind trials that showed homeopathy to be effective. How could there be?
Hmmm. Could it be that homeopathy was a crock of sh**, and people who used it to treat serious medical conditions wound up assuming room temperature?

Originally Posted by love View Post
What I found was that there were such trials. It was evident my worldview was in error. There was evidence in support of homeopathy working.
Considering what we've been reading in a number of threads, particularly those from Rolfe on Homeopathy, who, by the way, is well versed in SCIENTIFIC INQUIRY, I find it hard to believe that there's any evidence of homeopathy working at all, unless you're into self-delusion and masochism.

Originally Posted by love View Post
I began to trust expert opinions less and less. Especially when they say things like: "There is no evidence that homeopathy works". I realised they were back-constructing reality from their beliefs, rather than actually knowing that there was no evidence. Just like I had done.
Yeah, that's the stuff! When the experts who have tested it, tried it in double-blind trials, published their findings for peer review, put their reputations on the line, and in some cases, the lives of their patients, and discovered that it's BS... Hey, why listen to scientists, who are just no fun, and devoted to being killjoys, insisting that people actually wind up healthy and healed from what afflicts them, rather than just getting a warm fuzzy.

Originally Posted by love View Post
I guess after that I became more and more "woo" as I read, researched and experienced more.
Oh, you think?

Originally Posted by love View Post
I feel my belief system to be a lot more coherent and consistent than it was before, although it has radically changed. The conspiracy theories made me a bit paranoid for a while, but I have a more positive perspective on them now. I am certainly a lot more relaxed.
Coherent? How? You've yet to make a coherent post, and while you may be calm, I find you to be incredibly cruel and selfish.

Originally Posted by love View Post
Looking back on the past two years, I have experienced incredible things. I have swum with dolphins, cured phobias and traumas, stood in front of an oncoming train, been "possessed" by a ghost on a ghost hunt, met my "soul-mate", and trained with many people who I would have only otherwise seen on TV. Yes, I'm about as "woo" as they come, and I enjoy it.
Fine. Glad you're happy. But don't spew this intellectual slop around here and not expect it to be challenged, and challenged hard.

For one thing, just how in the hell did you know you were possessed by a ghost? People delude themselves in the realm of the paranormal all the time. I can point out to you more than a few myths surrounding a couple of California's "haunted highways," and show you using the FACTS that the whole thing is nothing more than self-delusion. You buy into that filth because you don't want to be bothered with actually using your brain.

Originally Posted by love View Post
Of course, I could have found out that all homeopaths talk nonsense and had a hilarious time laughing at their explanations as to why nothing was happenning. I did not have a large investment in the outcome.
Fowlsound has a huge investment in the outcome. If he invests in the outcome of homeopathy, he runs the very real risk of DYING. Frankly, I have no time for intellectual and medical dilletantes.

Originally Posted by love View Post
It was the act of doing something for fun that made it work for me.
As you said, you had nothing at stake. You wanted to try something new. You really had nothing to lose.

Sorry, but there are far too many people who have too much at stake to engage in the sort of intellectual dishonesty and cruelty you're advocating. If it were truly your life on the line, if it were you with cancer, would you trust a medical professional, whose training and experience had prepared that individual to examine the facts surrounding your condition, or someone who was offering you tap water with it's memory tweaked?

If you choose the latter, you're an idiot, and a fool.
Roadtoad is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 27th December 2005, 08:42 PM   #153
Roadtoad
Bufo Caminus Inedibilis
 
Roadtoad's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2002
Location: Citrus Heights, CA
Posts: 15,468
Originally Posted by John Jackson View Post
That answers every question that I could have asked.

Thanks again for contrasting reality so well.
You're far more polite than I am, John.

I'm sorry, but Love is an idiot.
Roadtoad is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 28th December 2005, 01:25 AM   #154
AnotherSillyAlias
Graduate Poster
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 1,522
Originally Posted by Roadtoad View Post

I'm sorry, but Love is an idiot.

On the face of it that seems likely but I wonder if there isn't a hefty degree of chain yanking going on here ....
AnotherSillyAlias is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 28th December 2005, 05:38 AM   #155
Mojo
Mostly harmless
 
Mojo's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Nor Flanden
Posts: 38,418
Originally Posted by fowlsound View Post
Call me when you have a peer reviewed paper based on double blind study.
Well, actually there are such papers, but they tend not to be of very good quality. There are more and better studies showing it doesn't work, hence the conclusion of the meta-analysis published in the Lancet earlier this year, for example.
Quote:
This finding is compatible with the notion that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are placebo effects.
__________________
"You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield

"The poor mystic homeopaths feel like petted house-cats thrown at high flood on the breaking ice." - Leon Trotsky
Mojo is online now   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 28th December 2005, 03:38 PM   #156
Ducky
Guest
 
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 11,933
Originally Posted by Mojo View Post
Well, actually there are such papers, but they tend not to be of very good quality. There are more and better studies showing it doesn't work, hence the conclusion of the meta-analysis published in the Lancet earlier this year, for example.


Right. In that case, I shall reword my statement as follows:

"Call me when you actually have a viable cancer treatment."

(Thanks Mojo )
Ducky is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 28th December 2005, 05:52 PM   #157
Mojo
Mostly harmless
 
Mojo's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Nor Flanden
Posts: 38,418
It's another of their self-contradictions, of course. They shout loudly about any DBPC trials that appear to support homoeopathy, but dismiss any that don't by claiming that DBPC trials are not appropriate to homoeopathy.
__________________
"You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield

"The poor mystic homeopaths feel like petted house-cats thrown at high flood on the breaking ice." - Leon Trotsky
Mojo is online now   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 28th December 2005, 06:06 PM   #158
Mojo
Mostly harmless
 
Mojo's Avatar
 
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Nor Flanden
Posts: 38,418
For example, note the final couple of sentences from this news story about the Lancet paper:
Quote:
A spokeswoman from the Society of Homeopaths said: "Many previous studies have demonstrated that homeopathy has an effect over and above placebo.

"It has been established beyond doubt and accepted by many researchers, that the placebo-controlled randomised controlled trial is not a fitting research tool with which to test homeopathy."
And then look at this document from the Society of Homeopaths' website titled An Overview of Positive Homeopathy Research and Surveys. Note the DBPC trials listed on pages 5, 7, 8 and 9.


Edited because I forgot to include the links.
__________________
"You got to use your brain." - McKinley Morganfield

"The poor mystic homeopaths feel like petted house-cats thrown at high flood on the breaking ice." - Leon Trotsky
Mojo is online now   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 28th December 2005, 11:19 PM   #159
fyslee
Student
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Posts: 32
Originally Posted by fowlsound View Post
Hey thanks!

What's the link? (ETA: Nevermind, I found it in your listed homepage. Thanks again!)


Welcome to the forum.
Thanks for the welcome.

I am not yet allowed to post links. It's that stupid rule about 15 link-free entries...... I can understand the logic in it (to prevent linkspam), but 15 is a lot of chit chat, and for me it's like working with one hand tied behind my back:

"Welcome as our new salesman in the Electrical Appliances department. We hope you can sell a lot of these devices to people, but you won't be allowed to turn on the electricity or demonstrate them until you've sold 15 of them."

I've never seen such a rule on any list before. Maybe they should change it to five link-free entries and trust people a bit more.
fyslee is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Old 28th December 2005, 11:34 PM   #160
Dogdoctor
Canis Doctorius
 
Dogdoctor's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 14,786
Originally Posted by fyslee View Post
Thanks for the welcome.

I am not yet allowed to post links. It's that stupid rule about 15 link-free entries...... I can understand the logic in it (to prevent linkspam), but 15 is a lot of chit chat, and for me it's like working with one hand tied behind my back:

"Welcome as our new salesman in the Electrical Appliances department. We hope you can sell a lot of these devices to people, but you won't be allowed to turn on the electricity or demonstrate them until you've sold 15 of them."

I've never seen such a rule on any list before. Maybe they should change it to five link-free entries and trust people a bit more.
They should certainly be able to trust you, having done so much for the cause of skepticism but I guess they need to try to control other posters and so you get screened when it is not necessary
__________________


Dogdoctor is offline   Quote this post in a PM   Nominate this post for this month's language award Copy a direct link to this post Reply With Quote Back to Top
Reply

International Skeptics Forum » Reference » Forum Spotlight

Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is On
Forum Jump


All times are GMT -7. The time now is 11:00 AM.
Powered by vBulletin. Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.

This forum began as part of the James Randi Education Foundation (JREF). However, the forum now exists as
an independent entity with no affiliation with or endorsement by the JREF, including the section in reference to "JREF" topics.

Disclaimer: Messages posted in the Forum are solely the opinion of their authors.