Arte shows a film about homeopathy as a health policy and ideological problem.
Okay I got it. "Pharmacologically ineffective", we have heard that often enough. Also the recurring finding that homeopathic medicines do not contain any active ingredient according to the criteria of modern medicine and that therefore no effect can be expected from them. On the other hand, it is also known that conventional medicine repeatedly reaches its limits - for whatever reason - and that the era of effective antibiotics is drawing to a close due to carelessness in animal husbandry and medicine. Perhaps it would be time to be a little more skeptical about the conventions of modern medicine. Which Karlo Malmedie's documentation is not really.
Serious-looking homeopaths and naive believers
A number of confident and serious-looking homeopaths have their say, as do a few naive or jealous believers. On the other hand there are skeptics who rely on scientific studies and (rightly) warn against the believers. No question who ultimately scores here. The effect of homeopathic medicine is patronized on the popular placebo effect, in other words: all of this only works if and because it is believed and the body starts self-healing powers under this influence.
But if that were all, the question would still remain open, why conventional medicine cannot or does not want to take advantage of this effect? Perhaps a diagnosis based on a careful medical history simply takes too much time?
Homeopathy: It's about worldviews
That there are also known cases in which homeopathic medicine helps children for whom believers have not yet been persuaded; the placebo effect makes it difficult to explain that it helps animals to whom questions of faith are rather foreign. The defiant zero-fifteen argumentation seems rather helpless; the fact that the film constantly rides on the mystifying production methods and potentiation rituals of the homoeopaths does not help either. Using the evidential value of studies is not without its problems if the evidential value of other studies has to be questioned beforehand; it is best to only believe the studies that you have falsified yourself.
Update: The committee agreed. 800,000 euros are thus available for the controversial Bavarian # homeopathy study. Originally, the estimated cost was "only" 300,000 to 400,000 euros. The CSU and Free Voters voted for it. Greens abstain.
- Sebastian Horsch (@SebHorsch) February 13, 2020In truth, as the film's subtext shows, it's about worldviews: the fact that homeopathy could work simply contradicts the worldview of so-called conventional medicine. That's all. That a world view defines the horizon and that everything beyond this horizon is impossible is a narrow-mindedness with an expiry date. Isaac Newton, founder of classical mechanics, would have been reluctant to shake his head when reading Einstein's theory of relativity. Couldn't it be that pharmacological research that deals with molecules misses something in the sub-molecular range? That there are processes that have not yet appeared in the research horizon?
Homeopathy: Müller-Wohlfahrt speaks of evidence
After all, there is still Mull, with real names: Hans-Wilhelm Müller-Wohlfahrt, the most famous sports doctor in the Republic, who freely admits that he also uses homoopathy and thus achieves success. He cannot explain this, but he speaks of evidence. Perhaps one should test the concept of healing, as conventional medicine understands it. And don't just watch maliciously how little bottles are hewn on thick books.
By Hans-Jürgen Linke
To the broadcast
"Homeopathy", Arte, Saturday, February 15th, 9:50 pm. On the web: Arte + 7
