Hey, would you be up for a chat sometime? I promise I will hit on you.

Have you ever given your concept of the placebo effect a rigourous thought? If that many people can be healed by such an effect, then science should be investigating it rigourously. Actually, that is is finally taking place. Humans have two sides of a brain for reasons not yet clearly understood. If you prefer a “regular” dose of the drugs which are killing people off instead of an “infinite dilution” (whatever that might mean), I leave you to it. And the quantum world – and its effects – are only beginning to be explored. I place my beliefs squarely on the safe side. I trust my body/mind far more than the medical industry. Probability has nothing to do with it. We disagree. No big deal. 🙂 But I will suggest – again – that you read the full “Dying To Be Me”. Science hasn’t a clue on that one.

Undoubtedly. There’s no fiercer champion of a viewpoint than someone who once held the opposite of that viewpoint just as fiercely.

It’s possible to be trained as a scientist but still believe in things that can’t be proven rigorously. A good bit of the results of homoepathy can be explained by the placebo effect and the comfort that we derive from feeling in control. Many people get hung up on the “infinite dilution” of a drug having the same effect as a “regular” dose. Not really related is chronopharmacology, the idea that the time of day that you take a drug makes a difference in its effectiveness or will minimize side effects.

Humans are not wired to understand probabilty well. This makes sense, because even when there’s a fifty/fifty chance of something happening, there is one outcome or another. If we have enough obsevations of a given class of predictions, we might have greater or lesser confidence in the prediction depending on how often the predictor, such a weatherman, has been right. Not understanding probability well is why we fear disproportionately improbable, but high-consequence, events like plane crashes.

As you wish. I imagine we have more than a few agreement areas. 🙂

My mistake on opening this can of worms. I’ll not be changing your mind. You’re not going to change mine since I’ve already been an alt med enthusiast and wasted thousands on all manner of nostrums and magic water. We have a different mission here and we agree on that. I’m calling a Bunker Truce on this line of conversation.

Thanks for the link, I’ll have to read it later today (I’m running on three hours sleep and am going back to bed shortly).

Usually. But I’m willing to bet that there are deaths we haven’t heard about yet. Based on the information from Tony’s reporting it is inevitable.

We all learn from each other here—one of the things that makes the bunker so great!