LOL. What about vaccine? Just kidding.

Furthermore, all skeptics should know, that homoepathy doesn't have a chemical basis. It's supposed to have informational basis. Arguing, that there is no active substance left in the water is irrelevant, there isn't supposed to be one. Who receives this information? Our nerve, endocrine and immunity system, which then starts working more effectively, approximately similarly to vaccination. Skeptics claim, that there is no memory of water, that could carry this information. Unfortunately, I didn't find on that website how did they come to this conclusion. Perhaps it's in the videos somewhere, but my computer's sound card is currently out of order

I personally used homeopathy like Paragrippe or Angin Heel for influenza, and the results are about a relief of pain, not bad, but not so great. In my opinion, homeopathy is not suited to fight infections. I'd recommend it on allergies, for example, this is a typical case when the immunity system is misinformed and attacks the home team.

As for infectional diseases, I use MMS and it's certainly not weak, unlike homeopathy. Yeah, my dad got a bit sick when he took it, but these initial effects were only natural and soon subsided, despite of about 12x higher dosage than what caused them. Now he says, that MMS removed sediments and indurations from his joints and inner ear. Furthermore, it saved his teeth from chronical paradontosis which turned into gangrene of gums, that tormented him for many years. It saved at least half of his back teeth from falling out. He loves MMS, recommends it to everyone and even distributes it. So do I. Older people who took it say, that they feel 10-30 years younger.
I'm curious what will skeptical websites and pharmacologic corporations say about MMS, and I guess I'll have a good laugh.

You know, the problem is, that the scientific medicine doesn't work too... People get disappointed by it and then go for alternative, even without pseudo-scientific propagation. We've got a plenty of stories of our friends who got fucked up by doctors really badly. Yeah, medicinal treatments usually do something, because they're strong, even invasive, but this is no way to achieve a permanent health. Usually, another disease gets to the emptied place, because the body is still weak. Or weakened by the treatment.

I guess there must be something about alternative medicine, because I'm probably the only one of my classmates who didn't yet take a sick leave this year, and there's always someone missing. If the key to health is in not visiting doctors, I can only recommend it. The market model of medicine is obviously not suited to increase health, it reaps diseases like crops and calls it treatment.

 

amen, bob.  i'm so fucking sick of anti-vaccine crackpots.  i can still remember my grandmother telling me how terrified she was of catching polio when she was a little girl.  even today in eastern slovakia i sometimes see a few gypsy beggars with deformed legs from polio because their parents were either unwilling or unable to get them vaccinated.

It's all alternative medicine? You're not doing things like basic hygeine, eating right and avoiding exposure to sick people?

Did he actually submit to these journals or just list them? Most of what I found were Hesslrink and Humble's whoring on their own sites.

They wouldn't be the first to try to "borrow" credibility.

Homeopathy is such bullshit I can't see how people keep falling for it. The whole premise is flawed and is completely unscientific.

Answers in Gene Simmons: Damn, you beat me to the video. I love the last part about the homeopathic pints. Those are the kind of alcoholic beverages even an AA member could get down to.

I find it insulting that even though I hate the 'pay-as-you-go' capitalist health care system, I must be in the pocket of "Big PHARMA" if I don't tear apart the scientific methods that they use. Just because I hate the economic model in which they operate doesn't mean I think we should trash all the real advances to science they have made. "Slay the man, not the puck" according to the band Propagandhi, and I think the quote is apt there. 

As to you crystal gripping hippies (a quote from my non woo woo infected hippie friend Russ) you need to get with reality and understand that if water has a memory, then your getting a lot more then just "medicine" in it. Your also getting all the piss and shit that's been in it as well.

To Luminon: You talk about scientific medicine and alternative medicine. There's just one catch, buddy. There's only those things proven to work, medicine, and those things either not proven to work or proven not to work, which you call "alternative medicine" and I call bullshit!

 

Now GET IN THE FEKKIN' SACK!

 

Harsh, but fair

Smartypants, I like you more and more.

In everyday life we can't do science as scientists imagine it, we can't test everything in laboratory, spend millions of dollars and get a peer review from authorities in the field. We have to rely upon our own judgement and eliminate biases and imprecisions by mental autocorrection. It may even need intuition. In real life, we must resort to total pragmaticism, if something works, then it works, regardless of what some scientists far away somewhere may think.
The scientific investigation became too slow, expensive and clumsy, it can't follow us anywhere. Yes, it produces results, but only with what can be easily measured, weighed, observed and reprodced at will. The technology we use is limited. Scientists should be aware of that, instead narrowing the universe into what can be detected by that technology. In this way, no wonder that 95% of the universe's matter and energy escapes the detectors. And this is not just some invisible space debris, it's variety of substances that may very well participate on what we call life, consciousness, emotions, thinking, vacuum, gravity, static electricity, electric charge, vitality, and so on. But also this might be the explanation for what the homeopathy or astrology works with, the "essence" of substances, thoughts and vitality.

I can only repeat the idea of evolutionary paleobiologist from the department of Earth sciences at the university of Cambridge, professor Simon Conway-Morris. As he said, the physical brain might be an antenna, that receives the consciousness, but doesn't create it.  (SGU podcast #238)
This idea and the courage to express it publically deserves applause from all esotericists in the world. Hear, hear!!!

Actually, I think the problem is that my view is so much more expansive than many people's definition.

I'm sure this is correct. I still hold that mainstream medicine isn't perfect, either. For centuries, hospitals were merely a place where people went to die, and being in one would most certainly make you sicker. Things are much better now, thankfully, but to reject alternate healing methods that could potentially help just because they didn't originate in a laboratory is, imo, irresponsible. For one thing, Big Pharma is a corporate enterprise, first and foremost, which I consider far more frightening. Primates with an upset stomach can go out into the jungle and find just the right plant to eat to solve their problem. In some cases (granted, not all), the more primitive solution may be the better solution.

I am genuinely curious how that works out to support your statements above.I doubt anyone here is claiming that Science explains everything, either now or in the foreseeable future.

'Alternative' medicine is NOT typically rejected or discounted 'just because it doesn't originate in a laboratory'. That is a very poor argument. It sounds like the straw-man characterisation of science we hear from Theists that science is only about laboratories and test-tubes, which is very disappointing.

It is rejected for various reasons, but mainly because of a lack of adequate testing or evidence to show it actually works, especially if there is no plausible mechanism for how it could work.

Not saying they can't occasionally unfairly reject some things.

Some alternative medicines, especially herbal, are also subject to wild variations in amount of active ingredient. Herbal medicine can be effective, as you say, and many 'conventional' medicines have been derived from them, often to produce more effective and consistent treatments than the original. But without testing, and claims often based on purely intuitive or associative 'reasoning', we should be skeptical. Alternative medicines have on occasion actually caused harm:  http://whatstheharm.net/alternativemedicine.html.

Even if science cannot explain something like 'telepathy', scientific tests can help establish whether there really is something to explain at all. I guess that means determining whether more mundane explanations adequately fit what you might see as 'supernatural' event, or evidence for one.

Of course, 'lack of evidence' is not proof. Dammit, it is annoying to hear someone using these lame, straw-man arguments, like a Theist trying to justify his belief.

With stuff you may actually put in your body, some direct proof of both effectiveness and safety, ideally a clinical trial, would seem to be a good idea. Otherwise, as history shows, such 'medicines' could actually do something bad to you, no matter how much you or they 'believe' in it. Of course 'plausible' is a bit subjective, that's why I used it, to allow as much 'slack' as possible to your ideas. My point was simply that if they can't refer to some actual tests, and not even describe some mechanism that is vaguely consistent with the way other medicines are known to work, there really is no good reason to try it, unless you are very desperate, perhaps.

No, the problem is it doesn't work and has been proven to be ineffective.  If it did work it would break everything we know about medicine, chemistry and biology.  Luckily it doesn't work, so reality is safe.

Medicine gave homeopathy a fair shake.  If it had *ever* been shown to have any usefulness beyond the placebo effect, it would have been incorporated into established medicine.

 

You don't think drug companies would love it if they could patent and sell a bunch of shit that is basically free to make?  The fact of it is, doing a genuine study on the effectiveness of homeopathy is dirt simple, and people have done it.  It doesn't work.  Full stop.  What the heck is there to argue about?  Proponents can't show why it would work in theory, and they can't show that it works in real trials.

If we were talking about some standard drug the pharma companies made no-one would care because there isn't that fun flavor of woo and conspiracy theories attached to it.

Yea I know I could have quoted better, but it is not a narrow attitude to reject things that have been disproven.  That is my point; once something is conclusively shown to be a sham why should we continue to give it credibility?  Scientists have better things to do than debunk fads over and over.

 Homeopathy industry pushes for EU-wide public healthcare support

Nice knowin' ya EU and your widely publicized health system.

 

And I've gone a 3 year stretch before without getting much more than a sneeze or two, so what? I don't take vitamins and don't eat all that great either. It means nothing except that you're willing to take anecdotal evidence as proof that something works. 

 

It's the same thing every time, a person gets better (As if it's impossible to recover from something without the aide of medicine!) while on some crackpot alternative medicine and confirmation bias carries it the rest of the way. The only extreme plausible example would be that some forms of alternative medicine only has an effect on a very small percentage of the population so no positive effects would be seen in any clinical trials. Water doesn't carry memories in any way, shape, or form that would effect the body, get over it.

 

I don't know why I bother since convincing Luminon of anything other than what he already believes is impossible. I think he's the same kid that said he can experience OBEs and actually see things out of viewing distance/angle but is too lazy (cognitively dissonant) to set up an extremely simple test to prove it.

Reality is dead.
   - Friedrich Nietzsche's android ghost

I'm not, this is why I don't accept anecdotal evidence of pharmacologic industry.

Except there are still new discoveries in homeopathy. There is a research of my countryman, Jan Frank, who uses patient's symptoms and horoscope to determine what homeopathic remedy should be mixed, and then this remedy will cure the symptoms. He's quite succesful. And there's another homeopath, some englishman, who discovered, that homeopathic solutions of pure elements of periodic table cause specific states of consciousness. The result is similar for groups of elements, like for lanthanoids, actinoids, heavy elements, and so on. This field is developing, there is in fact a whole underground science. Only a lack of finances and political goodwill on it's side protects the official science from a total revolution.

 

I'm a pragmatic person. I believe only in what I can see and touch, together with other people. It's not my fault that I'm in a whole sub-culture of psychics. Experience verified on myself and dozens of other people and repeated for many years is pretty damn convincing. Much more than academic opinions of people who never tried anything by themselves. (you know what I mean) Practice is the living reality, theory is fantasy. Anyone in my place would have to acknowledge that. But most of people isn't in my place, this is why I have to be patient with their unfortunate inexperience.

And no, I'm not that kid who claimed anything about astral travelling or distant viewing. I don't know who do you mean, I don't have such a talent. I had only 1 OOBE in my life and I never said I could repeat it any time, because I can't.

Which is entirely irrelevant to the question of whether alternative medicine works*. In fact, it is a "tu quoque" fallacy and you're creating a false dichotomy. "So what if homeopathy has inadequate evidence! Mainstream medicine isn't perfect either!", but even if mainstream scientific medicine were as bad as homoeopathy (which it isn't), that wouldn't vindicate the lack of evidence for homoeopathy or in any way justify it. It is a false dichotomy to claim the effectiveness of one because of the ineffectiveness of the other.

 

*"alternative medicine" as such doesn't even exist, or rather, is an artificial category of everything that isn't medicine. There is no common principles among different alternative modalities that would qualify such a category (crystal healing certainly differs from homoeopathy and homoeopathy has nothing in common with acupuncture etc.). As such each "alternative" treatment has to be examined separately. A general statement like "alternative medicine is effective" is meaningless.

As BobSpence already pointed out, "alternative healing methods that could potentially help" aren't "rejected" out of hand. They are tested in controlled clinical trials (which are designed in such a way as to eliminate/reduce bias and statistical flukes) and if they fail the trial, they are discarded (if they weren't it wouldn't be science). If they do show an effect, they are tested further and over the years make it into medicine. Take herbs for example, if they have biologically active ingredients, they are tested. If one of the substances in it is shown to be effective, it will be extracted and purified and precisely dosed and then tested in what dosage it produces various effects, so that it can be safely prescribed in the appropriate dose. There's really not much of a difference to the "natural" unrefined alternative, other than that is is SAFER (because concentration can vary strongly in plants and doesn't contain other ingredients that are in the plant and may be harmful) and extensively tested.

A couple of points:

1) You should be more frightened of CAM (complementary and alternative medicine) than "Big Pharma", because "Big Pharma" at least is heavily regulated by laws and requirements have to be met by every drug before it can be released onto the market. The pharmaceutical industry also has to conduct post marketing analysis for possible emerging side effects (that may crop up on a level that is significant when administered to hundreds of thousands of people, say 200 cases of strong side effects in 300.000 administered doses, that were not directly obvious in the trials of a couple of thousand people) and has to consequently be removed from the market if shown to be risky in any (disproportional) way. 

Now look at CAM. There is effectively no regulation of CAM, you don't have to conduct clinical trials, as long as you don't make direct claims that your product "treats x", in case of homoeopathy or supplements or herbal remedies, they're not classified as "drugs", but as "food" and as such do not have to live up to the standard for safety and efficacy that is required of drugs. As long as you make wishy-washy "boosts your immune system"-kind of claims you can sell pretty much whatever the heck you want. No post marketing risk assessment, no trials, no evidence of efficacy (in some cases not even safety) required. 

2) The pharma industry is corporate, agreed. They aim for profit, agreed. Sometimes there act in disagreeable or morally ambivalent ways, agreed. Yet, they produce pharmaceuticals that work, cancer drugs, vaccines, drugs for hypertension, drugs for neurological disorders, hormones, insulin and so on that obviously safe the lives of millions of people every year, some of it may be really expensive, but they live up to what they are designed to do in the vast majority of cases.

3) To paint the pharma industry as the dark monolithic bogeyman that leeches off of the suffering of people, is to paint a very simplistic and naive picture indeed. Such a simplification of a complex system is always a good way to leave reality and go down the road were Secret Illuminati Freemasons lurk in the shadows, trying to impose the New World Order, or some such thing. The direction of wacky conspiracies. To take a more realistic approach: How is a drug made? Who makes them? Yes. People in flesh and blood! And hey! They might even have a conscience (hardly believable that such humans could exist). I'd wager a guess that most of those involved in pharmaceutical research, didn't spend years at the university studying pharmacology, molecular biology, cellular biology or something related, because they want to learn how to most effectively rip people off (there are far better venues for that*). In general they want to help people and cure diseases, which is a very human desire as we all can get sick including BigPharma employees and their relatives.

*for example selling pure water with nothing in it and claiming that less content equals more "potency" by virtue of sympathetic magic

Somehow there seems to be the pervasive idea that "natural" equates with "harmless" or "good", which is insane. Quick! Name one natural thing that can harm you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ok, time's up. Did you find something? Or a dozen things? A hundred? Eating a plant can be more dangerous than taking a drug, drugs have been extensively tested and are accompanied by a nice list of "may cause x in 1:1000 cases", whereas plants are not and testing them on yourself is a stupid idea. You can't be your own control group, you can't make an analysis and compare the deviation of the result with the norm if you're alone. You can't at the same time eat the plant and not eat the plant and compare whether it actually did anything (which is one of the many reasons why anecdotal evidence is absolutely useless for judging efficacy). There shouldn't be a double standard between "primitive" (and assumed to be harmless and effective without justification) and based on "modern research".

 

The only reasonable approach is to say "the better solution" is the one that has more (and better) evidence, whether it be primitive or the product of technology.

 

Wow Luminon... there is just so much wrong with your post, I'm no longer surprised you would fall for the theist's BS.

Anecdotal evidence from the pharmacological industry?!?! What do you mean? When did years of scientifically structured double blind studies become "anecdotal"? I personally hate the corporate structure of the industry as I am an anti-capitalist, but to call the studies they do "anecdotal" is complete BS. No, Mr. psychic boy, you obviously have no idea what the difference between anecdotal and scientific evidence is!

Horoscopes? REALLY!?!?! You realize that astrology has as much scientific evidence supporting it as the "giant Panda's hold up the flat hexagonal earth" theory. Just because you were dumb enough to be fooled by some crackpots, doesn't mean they have scientific credibility. And just because you don't like something, doesn't automatically mean it has nothing but anecdotal evidence to support it.

No, sorry dude, you're a loon. And the more you write, the more you dig yourself into that moniker.

Uhhh, yeah it is. No one is forcing you to be a part of this "Psychic underground", so yes, it is your fault. And being a part of anything labeled a "psychic underground" fully cements your loon status. If you fall for their BS, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd love to sell you, real cheap too.

So the theory of gravity is fantasy? Germ theory? Theory of Relativity?

Dude, you're a kook who needs a healthy does of dewooifacation. Ever hear of James Randi, Go look him up, he spent his career showing why those charlatans you associate with are nothing more then that.

Luminon, you have done nothing for the cause of Homeopathy here but just make it look crazier then normal. HOROSCOPES?!?!?! Cripes, I thought it was just magic water "medicine", now I learn that it is all wrapped up in the "true" astronomy of Ptolemy! HAHAHA! So if you want to lose your loon status, do some research on REAL SCIENCE and then come back. You might get a better response.

 

OK, if that's based on personal observation too, then my evidence is anecdotal.
So if a skeptic claims there is a study of something, then by this act of saying it does not become anecdotal ?

a) I understand how planets and constellations shift,
b) by horoscope I mean a printed out circle with exact position of planets and constellations. I don't mean astrologic reading. This homeopathic methods only needs to see the chart for basic data (aspects), not to interpret it.

The power of my senses saves my life every day on traffic lights, and that's anecdotal evidence. The same kind I use to examine my health state and so on. As for medicine, I only have anecdotal evidence, so I judge it according to what information I have, not what I don't have. There is nothing wrong with scientific evidence and testing. I just learned to not be dependent on it, and it works. And I think more people should be like that. I'd actually expect to be praised for my interest in maintaining of health and prevention of diseases. Isn't that...eh, rational?

OK, I admit, I was pretty much metaphorical with the theory/practice thing, because one doesn't have to be an opposite of the other. I just want to say, the practice will be always more important.

 

 

Well, I wouldn't be too hard on the 1970s. It was a volatile time. We were still recovering from the widespread and outright rejection of everything having to do with the mainstream institution of western culture at the end of the 1960s (and rightly so, in many cases). Everything completely fell apart. People felt lost and were grappling onto anything they could hold. It was also the decade that saw the birth of the most--and worst--cults, both religious and otherwise, because people were frightened and vulnerable.

Okay, this whole diatribe was WAAAAAY tl;dr, but I'll try to respond as best I can.

It isn't irrelevant at all. If one chooses to admit that in some cases, mainstream medicine isn't working the way it professes to, or you seem to believe, or the way it should, then I'd say exploring alternatives is a very good idea. There will be some hits and some misses, to be sure. That's no excuse to reject it all outright.

I've already explained that this conversation doesn't concern homeopathy SPECIFICALLY.

I never said that.

"Over the years" is the operative phrase here. If I were sentenced to a disease that would kill me in a year in a horrible painful death, the decades-long, insufferably labyrinthine, beaurocratic, corporate, and governmental process these drugs need to go through would far outweigh most potential side effects. A process, I'd like to point out, which in that great mire becomes very little about "safety" after all is said and done. You needn't bring up thalidomide, of course.

I have just three things to say to this: corporate financial might, lobbyists, and government corruption. No, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, I just don't trust capitalism any more than any other political ideology.

And mainstream medicine also does a lot of things that at best are ineffective, at worst, make the situation worse. This isn't a valid argument.

You're looking at it with blinders on. It's a BUSINESS. These companies go out to neighborhood GPs and give out free samples, and then give them "incentives" for prescribing them to their patients. This isn't "disagreeable," it's morally abhorrent. This careless administration of drugs led to a best friend of mine of fifteen years going so crazy that I had to cut her out of my life, and led her to attempt a quite ugly and violent (unsuccessful) suicide. Yes, that's just anecdotal, but I've seen the damage it can do first hand.

You're the one who's being naive. The very nature of corporations in the first place is that no one person is ever held accountable. It's why they're so dangerous. You really think those kind-hearted chemists in the lab have ANY say over decisions made by the corporation as a whole? Please. They do what they're told or they lose their jobs or worse, have their careers sabotaged for their dissent. You really need to read Karl Marx, first of all, or at least see the documentary The Corporation.

That was a cute little game you set up there, but no. The problem is that we are so very disconnected from the sources of our food and the environment from whence it comes. Animals in the wild don't have this problem, and they've been medicating themselves effectively and safely due to their innate knowledge of it for millions of years. Animals instinctively KNOW what plants they can eat and which they can't. We used to, and this is where a blind adherence to modern mainstream medicine is dangerous. Humans, with all the help of medical science, voluntarily choose to inject toxins into their skin. You should also read a book called Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature.

Ok, that pretty much settles it. Futile to try and reasonably argue with you about the interpretation of scientific evidence, when you're that far removed. I shall happily continue to resort to "toxins" in case I should get seriously ill and help fund the evil capitalistic corporations thereby, as you shall be happy to eat flowers, sugar pills or realign your chi.

Treatment of cancer is today a big risk, the cure is often worse than cancer itself. It's like a bet on who will die first, if tumor or patient. Many chemotherapy substances were originally chemical weapons. And so, as I have read, doctors get statistical thumbs up if one type of cancer disappears, but when another one appears elsewhere, it's taken as a new disease. Survival for a few years also counts. What doesn't count, is the great pressure on a patient to attempt suicide with chemotherapy and irradiation, because "it's the best available cure and the only chance."

The answer is simple. Woo is my daily bread for most of my life, I see how it works, I know people around it, many of them are my friends. I know about it more than anyone else from a distance. I learned to distinguish quackery from a real work. There are people who have a great positive impact on their surroundings. And there are also people, who misuse their abilities just to make money and be admired. There are all sorts of people, as everywhere. Only skeptics that don't know this area of life can say, that all psychics are conmen.

But it's also true, that there are almost no scientists among our community, at least not in regular contact with us. This is why my access to scientific community is limited. It's actually very beneficial if some of us study scientific theories and then explain them to the community. There is an interest on our side, but there is a severe lack of communication, contact and cooperation. This leads to many misunderstandings, as you see on me, and as I see on all skeptics Ive ever met.
 

  I'm a son of a professional astrologer, founder of a modern astrologic school and author of two books, (one will be this year published in USA) with many next books in preparation. As such, I can see how this new, modern astrology works, it's far from it's medieval version that is still prolific today.
But indeed, you must be a real martyr of study, because not even I read up on all the woo there is. My experience allows me to get rid of all information that is weak, diluted and useless. I don't seek this weak stuff, like Deepak Chopra, it may be good for beginners, but there is low density of real information per page. I care to study only the sources that proved themselves to be real and useful. Majority of the woo literature is indeed BS - this is what you get if there is no order in the whole sub-culture, no standards that the scientific community has. There are gems of knowledge lost among complete crap or warm, feely-goody nonsense. Someone who has no experience "from the inside" has no idea what to search for. If you're lost without double blind studies and proper controls, welcome to the jungle. I believe that proper standards may be brought to the woo community through peaceful cooperation and mutual trust, but so far, I saw only disdain from scientists. And yet, there are some of them who independently found out esoteric ideas and would find much more inspiration from us.

Geeez. What argument from popularity? That's argument from existence. It exists, therefore it exists, but it's still unknown and not examined if there is or isn't any credibility.

Sure! Because unlike what you may think, I don't know many people who could guess hidden symbols cards with some great precision. My own woo skills are mostly associated with control of so-called "energy". In other very blunt words, imagine Reich's orgone as it concentrates around, precipitates into semi-solid form, moves according to the psychic's will and then, for example, is used for healing, warming up, alteration of consciousness, and many other purposes. And I'm very, very curious what does my brain do, when I (or anyone else with this ability) work with the energy of aether (or whatever it really is). This is something that should be very easily measured, because it should be unmistakable on brain activity scans. If scientists can identify a single command to move finger or a specific thought on the scan, then aetherokinesis, should be OBVIOUS.
It won't help me guess any cards, but it should show a fascinating new phenomenon to study and it's very easy for me to replicate.

Ok, that's what I already do and there's a lot of rejected woo I left behind. I show my interest only in the areas that are either confirmed by my investigation, or not yet known to me. But my skepticism towards the scientists isn't in what they discover. It's in what they don't discover, because they're very specialized, if I say it politely. There is nothing wrong about specialization, if there is communication with differently specialized people, but there isn't. Instead, there is arrogance in being convinced that their way is the only right one. I doubt there is any willingness to cooperate with local woo communities. Scientists don't hesitate to send their people to tribal witch doctors and learn their herbal cures from them, but they would not do the same with psychics of the modern european countries. If yes, then only with disdain and to influence public opinion in their favor. This is not a way to solution, this will only create martyrs and more social popularity for underground movement.

  Philosophically speaking, you want me to believe that behind 9 mountains, behind 9 forests and behind 9 rivers there were some rigorous tests and journals. Perhaps they were, perhaps not. I really want to believe, but I'm not allowed, it's just a rumor, an anecdote, there's no way to be 100% sure. Should I rather choose the simpliest possible explanation?
You see, this is reversedly applied logic of skepticism. If that pisses you off, remeber, this is how others see you. I prepare an article on that topic. This will make you take a break from the boards for a month! Don't you understand? I'm trying to show a proverbial mirror to you. It's your fault that you take everything so personally.

I am pretty sure if we did not put some 'faith' in the scientific method and required everything to be tested 1st person, we would all still be living in the iron age.

Hasn't the scientific method shown that it works yet?