The Homeopathic Elephant in the Room

While always on the radar of skeptics, Homeopathy has has hit the news – or at least the blogosphere – recently with the case of Homeopath Francine Scrayen attempting to sue blogger Dan Buzzard over telling the truth of her involvement in the death of Penelope Dingle.

A while back I ran the numbers to show that there is in fact nothing in homeopathic remedies. But there is one more little thing that rarely gets mentioned, and I would like to haul that out into the open for ridicule. Suppose, just suppose magic water did have the ability to remember the properties of dilution to non-existence. Just suppose. The majority of homeopathic remedies are purchased in pill form. So, what’s in the pill? Pills are a sugar or starch based solid that, we presume, have come in contact with the magic water. But in order to package the pills, they must be dried out. In other words, the water is evaporated away. So not only do homeopathic pills not contain any active ingredient, they also contain none of the magic water that is supposed to retain the memory of the nonexistent ingredient.

So to produce homeopathic remedies, they first dilute out the ingredient leaving only water, and then they remove the water. Yup. There really IS nothing in it.

 

Hats off to Rhys Morgan

Just go read this post:

http://rhysmorgan.co/2011/11/threats-from-the-burzynski-clinic/

Rhys Morgan, high school student and skeptical blogger, deals with threats from a frothy-mouthed rep of Burzynski clinic with aplomb.

Keep up the great work Rhys!

Whatever Happened to Parsimony?

These two items cropped up recently:

• Nicolas Cage is a Vampire
• John Travolta is a Time Traveller

The people proposing these theories and putting the photos up for sale are either themselves loopy, or they think there are gullible loopy people out there with scads of cash to waste. Or both.

I mean really.

When you see a picture that sort of looks like someone, do you think to yourself “gee, that sort of looks like [person]”?  Or do you think “That looks like [person], so it must be [person], because nobody else could POSSIBLY look kinda like [person]”?

It frightens me that there are people who think that undead vampires and time travel are more probable than some people looking like other people. They need to spend more time on this site, so they can learn that George Carlin is actually Sigmund Freud…

The Nibiru stupid – it burns!

I was searching for a nice tutorial for my students on using Stellarium today, when I came across this youtube video:

At first I thought it might be something cute inserted by the Stellarium team – it is open source, after all, so someone may have slipped it in. But then I read the description:

…If you also want observe Nibiru, just download and install the software Stellarium ( http://www.stellarium.org/ ) and then go directly to the directory C:\Program Files\Stellarium\data, and copy/paste the information below at the end of the ssystem.ini file.

[nibiru]
name = NIBIRU
parent = Sun
radius = 24000
oblateness = 0.0
albedo = 0.9
lighting = true
halo = true
color = 1.0,0.84,0.68
tex_map = ariel.png
tex_halo = star16x16.png
coord_func = comet_orbit
orbit_Epoch = 630033.0
orbit_MeanAnomaly = 220.0
orbit_SemiMajorAxis = 234.888999
orbit_Eccentricity = 0.991700
orbit_ArgOfPericenter = 270.0
orbit_AscendingNode = 194.5
orbit_Inclination = -145.0
sidereal_period = 1336815.0
…

And *FACEPALM*

So I ask myself, just how fucking stupid are these people? This guy adds data for a nonexistent object into the software, and then claims the output is proof of the existence of that object. And he tells you how to do it.

So just to show how utterly ludicrous this is, I give you the following screenshot from Stellarium. Proof. What more do you need?

Running the numbers on homeopathic dilution

Why do we keep saying that homeopathy is not medicine? Why do we keep saying that there is no medicine in it? Surely when you dilute something there is still some of it there. So why do skeptics insist that there is nothing?

Well, I’ll explain.

In a typical homeopathic dilution, a tiny sample of something is dissolved in water, and then 1 mL of solution is transferred to 99 mL of water (making an even 100 mL). It is mixed (well, “succussed”), and then 1 mL is transferred to another 99 mL container, and so on. This may be done 20 or 30 times.

Sure, that’s a lot of dilution, but even if you put a few drops of something in a swimming pool, there are so many atoms in a drop that any sample should contain traces of the substance, and the homeopathic dilution is, after all, only a few litres.

Well, no. Let’s do the math on this, and see what the concentration comes out to be at the end. Let’s choose something like Lithium, as it is light, and it is used as a medication (I have no idea if it is used in homeopathy, but let’s just use it as an example). Lithium has a molar mass of 6.94g, and a density of 0.53 g/mL. Let’s begin with a 1% solution (v/v), and dilute it 20 times:

1 mL of Lithium contains 4.6×10^22 atoms. That’s 4600000000000000000000 atoms. That’s a lot. When dissolved, 1 mL of that solution should contain 1/100 of that, though still 46000000000000000000 atoms. But each time we dilute it, we decrease it by a factor of 100, so with serial dilutions, we have

1. 460000000000000000 atoms
2. 4600000000000000 atoms
3. 46000000000000 atoms
4. 460000000000 atoms
5. 4600000000 atoms
6. 46000000 atoms
7. 460000 atoms
8. 4600 atoms
9. 46 atoms
10. 0.46 atoms
11. 0.0046 atoms
12. 0.000046 atoms
13. 0.00000046 atoms
14. 0.0000000046 atoms
15. 0.000000000046 atoms
16. 0.00000000000046 atoms
17. 0.0000000000000046 atoms
18. 0.000000000000000046 atoms
19. 0.00000000000000000046 atoms
20. 0.0000000000000000000046 atoms

What this means is that after only 10 dilutions there is a roughly 50:50 chance of a single atom being present, and after 20, there is a chance of 1 in 217 billion billion that there will even be one atom present. Or, put another way, it would be the same as taking one mL of a substance and dissolving it in a volume of water equivalent to a sphere over two and a half billion kilometres across, or roughly the size of the orbit of Saturn correction: with 20 dilutions the volume would be about the volume of a sphere the size of earth’s orbit. But if you add two more dilutions, that sphere expands to the orbit of Uranus. And if I’m doing my math correctly, 30 dilutions would be equivalent to dilution in a sphere 130 light years across!*

So we know that there is none of the active ingredient in homeopathic medicine, if it is in fact prepared properly. None at all. But then, homeopaths don’t claim the original substance is there – they claim the water is influenced, and retains a “memory” of the substance, and that this memory is what is amplified by the dilution. This, too, is of course utter bullshit.  This idea is born of magical wish-thinking, and is not even remotely related to reality. Water is water, and has the properties of water, not a “memory” of what was once in it.

So that’s why, when we say “there’s nothing in it”, we really mean it.

*check my math:

• there are 10^15 cm^3 in a cubic km
• 30 dilutions by 100 is 10^60 mL
• which is 10^45 km^3
• which is a sphere with radius 6.2×10^14 km, or 65 light years.

The Disingenuous “Thermodynamics” Argument

You know, I still keep seeing the second law of thermodynamics being used as an argument against evolution, despite multiple thorough rebuttals. So let me add a few words of my own in an effort to stem the flow of stupid.

The argument, loosely summarized, goes like this:

1. The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that entropy must increase in any closed system.
2. Since life from non-life requires complex molecules to form from simple molecules, life could not arise by chance, because this would violate the 2nd Law.
3. Since mammals and birds and fish are all more complex than single-cell organisms, they could not have evolved, as a system cannot become more complex over time.

The rebuttals for this are, quite simply:

1. The Earth is not a closed system. We receive about 1.3 kJ of solar energy per square metre per second, every second, always.  The second law of thermodynamics does not apply.
2. Life from non-life is abiogenesis, not evolution. But abiogenesis is thought to have been driven by heat and chemosynthesis, so again there is an input of energy.
3. Lastly, and most ironically, the very people who claim that single celled organisms couldn’t possibly become complex, multicellular organisms, themselves grew from a single cell. So it’s good enough for them, but not any other organism. And secondly, the argument using thermodynamics against evolution proposes, instead, the sudden appearance of all living things. Like that doesn’t violate the laws of thermodynamics. Sheesh.

But wait, there’s more. You see, the argument that evolution is impossible because of the second law was widely promoted by the likes of Drs. Henry Morris and Duane Gish of the Institute for Creation Research. Please note that these gentlemen, at the time they made these claims, had doctorates in Engineering and Biochemistry respectively. Which means they understood the laws of thermodynamics, and would have known that the argument was wrong. Which means they were blatantly lying.

The fact that this argument is still being presented as evidence against evolution is appalling, and shows just how ill-informed the anti-evolution movement really is.  Feel free to send anyone you find using this argument to this page, or for a more torough thrashing, to the Talk Origins Thermodynamics FAQ.

Economic argument against the woo

XKCD for the WIN:

Thought of the day

Dilbert is one of the few things that keep me going despite rampant stooopidity in the world. This one certainly struck a chord.

UFOs and the Argument from Ignorance

This is a great video clip of Neil DeGrasse Tyson explaining the principle of argument from ignorance in the context of UFO sightings.

DNFTT

For the six of you who don’t know, here is the definition of a troll from Wikipedia:

In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.

And from Urban Dictionary:

One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument Essentially, a troll is someone who jumps into discussions to generate a flurry of responses – usually aggrevated – and seems to feed off the responses, often interjecting additional comments to try to stimulate further aggrevation. They consider the responses recognition and affirmation, so the more responses they get, the happier they are, even if those responses are scathing.

Anyone who frequents online fora has come across such behaviour. But it is not always clear whether we are dealing with a troll, per se, or just an idiot. The first question is, must a troll be intentionally trolling? If a person (or person-like organism) behaves like a troll and performs troll-like actions because of some firm, intrinsic belief or a genuine desire to try to convert others to their point of view, are they a troll? Can one be an inadvertant troll?

To answer that, I suggest putting it through the Duck Test. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, well, for all intents an purposes it is a duck. Or a merganser, which is close enough.

The second question is, must a troll necessarily be a commenter, or can trolling be generated in a post itself? Typically, trolls toss inflammatory comments into an otherwise normal discussion. However, if someone takes the time to generate a full-blown post that accomplishes the same result – aggrevation and a flurry of responses – then the result is the same. An ambitious troll, but a troll nonetheless.

And so, with these criteria considered, I think it is perfectly fair to say that Dawkinswatch fits the definition of a troll.

Consider: He has little imagination, mostly just rehashing the twaddle of others. His posts are often inflammatory, accusing celebrities of devil worship, and accusing those who don’t share his particular brand of YEC fundamentalism of ignorance, stupidity, insanity, and immorality. He repeats himself despite contrary evidence, and asks for information just provided. He misses the point of most counter arguments. The more his arguments are shown to be baseless, the more he writes. And best of all, he frequently responds to legitimate arguments with non-sequiters of epic proportion.

Dawkinswatch, whether intentional or not, is a troll.
And there is really only one response.
Do Not Feed the Troll (DNFTT).