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From: Cornelius Garbanzo (ustlnx15-n2.ust.hk)
In Reply to: Re: Homeopathy posted by Jennifer Tow, IBCLC on February 11, 2004 at 10:30 pm:
Please do not take my criticism of homeopathy as a defense of standard medical care. I agree with much of what you have written. There is a great deal wrong with modern medicine, and I agree that standard medical practice often falls abysmally short of the scientific ideal, even though it claims to be based on science. (To give you some idea of where my sympathies lie, I fully support most of what John Robbins has to say in Reclaiming Our Health -- although I do think he is a bit too uncritical about such things as "aura manipulation.") But the mere fact that many M.D.s use "science" as a smokescreen to cover their prejudices and attack alternative therapies is no reason to reject the scientific method as an ideal. It is really the only thing we have to distinguish what works from what doesn't. Your positive experiences with homeopathy are all examples of the body's wonderful ability to heal itself. I agree that the total lack of side effects is a major advantage of homeopathy over standard medicine. But it remains a fact that homeopathic remedies are by definition placebos. You seem to take that as some sort of an insult, or an implication that placebos are worthless, but it's not. I have stated many times on this forum that placebos are not just figments of the imagination -- they produce a real measurable decrease in stress hormones, which leads to a real measurable boost of the immune system, which leads to a real measurable increase in healing. What is so hard about just accepting that for what it is -- the body's ability to heal itself? You talk about "arrogance," but to me there is nothing more arrogant than telling hundreds of thousands of physicists and chemists that they are wrong about the most fundamental and well-established principles of their science, all because you want to believe that you played an active role in healing your body, rather than acknowledging that just maybe your body healed itself.
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