I don’t know of nontrivial cases and circumstances where homeopaths are right about homeopathy (and where their statements are taken as normally understood).
We could imagine cases where people underwent homeopathic treatments and saw improvements in their symptoms for other reasons. For example, colds usually stick around for 3-4 days and dissipate without treatment, so you take a homeopathic medicine and two days your cold vanishes and you think “It worked.” The correlation-causation error that might seem obvious to skeptics, but it isn’t to the homeopath believers.
As I interpret the Franklin quote, you provisionally accept (don’t immediately and explicitly challenge) the claim that the homeopathic medicine made the cold go away, so you can establish a further dialogue with some chance (let’s just say 10%) of causing doubt in the other person. If you immediately say “There is no way that the homeopathic medicine had any effect,” the person will get angry at you. You’ll probably have a smaller chance of changing their mind, and they won’t like you, which generally doesn’t help you accomplish goals.
With Franklin’s approach, I think it doesn’t even matter that there are no merits to a homeopaths treatments (or insert whichever group); you need to cede some ground to keep negotiations open and to get people to like you because it’s helpful later.
We could even imagine cases where people underwent homeopathic treatments and saw improvements in their symptoms for that reason. The placebo effect is often a real thing, and is most effective when you don’t believe what you’re taking is a placebo.
If it were possible to keep homeopathy from being inexplicably muddled up with non-evidence-based naturopathy (where your treatment may have negative side effects), unfortunately mixed up with anti-”allopathy” (where you forgo a more medically-effective treatment), or inescapably tied to anti-epistemology in general, it might even be a net good on its own.
If anyone has found that the placebo effect isn’t real, making scientific history by publishing your discovery might be of higher utilty than downvoting my outdated information.
True. But am I just being biased when I interpret that as support for my claim? “Sham acupuncture” and even placebo pills given to people who are told they’re taking placebos both show significant positive effects. I’d be very surprised if placebo pills given to people who are told they’re taking real “homeopathic” medicine didn’t show real effects too.
But am I just being biased when I interpret that as support for my claim?
What is your claim, precisely?
Sure, giving homeopathic pills to people is likely to make them feel better via placebo. But by the same reasoning, this will also work for voodoo rituals, holy water, and mind rays from outer space.
I’m not sure I know what point you meant to make by this.
I read Franklin’s advice as applying, and intending to be applied, quite readily in those cases where one’s interlocutor is totally and clearly wrong. The idea is that you take a certain roundabout approach to telling them that they’re wrong, without quite coming out and saying it straight out. The fact that they are wrong need not be in question; it’s merely a matter of which tactics are effective in convincing them. (The assumption, of course, is that you’re interested in convincing them.)
In any case, I am unsure in what sense your comment is a response to what I said… could you clarify?
The way I read Franklin’s quote is that if someone says “well, (factual statement X) is true, and from it I draw (unwarranted conclusion Y)”, we should claim to agree with him (because we agree with X) and act as though drawing conclusion Y is a minor flaw in his theory that doesn’t negate the fact that he’s basically correct.
But he’s not basically correct. He did invoke X, and X is true, but to say that he’s right, or even partially right, means he’s right about a substantial part of his argument, not that he’s based it on at least one statement that is true. A homeopath doesn’t become partly right just because he says “well, vaccines work by using a tiny amount of something to protect against it, so perhaps homeopathy can also use a tiny amount of a substance to protect against it”, even if the statement about vaccines is literally correct.
‘If the data is good, but the argument is not, argue the argument (e.g. by showing that it doesn’t hold water). Don’t argue about the conclusion and point to the bad argument as evidence.’ (not a rationality quote, just curious about your reaction)
I don’t know of nontrivial cases and circumstances where homeopaths are right about homeopathy (and where their statements are taken as normally understood).
We could imagine cases where people underwent homeopathic treatments and saw improvements in their symptoms for other reasons. For example, colds usually stick around for 3-4 days and dissipate without treatment, so you take a homeopathic medicine and two days your cold vanishes and you think “It worked.” The correlation-causation error that might seem obvious to skeptics, but it isn’t to the homeopath believers.
As I interpret the Franklin quote, you provisionally accept (don’t immediately and explicitly challenge) the claim that the homeopathic medicine made the cold go away, so you can establish a further dialogue with some chance (let’s just say 10%) of causing doubt in the other person. If you immediately say “There is no way that the homeopathic medicine had any effect,” the person will get angry at you. You’ll probably have a smaller chance of changing their mind, and they won’t like you, which generally doesn’t help you accomplish goals.
With Franklin’s approach, I think it doesn’t even matter that there are no merits to a homeopaths treatments (or insert whichever group); you need to cede some ground to keep negotiations open and to get people to like you because it’s helpful later.
We could even imagine cases where people underwent homeopathic treatments and saw improvements in their symptoms for that reason. The placebo effect is often a real thing, and is most effective when you don’t believe what you’re taking is a placebo.
If it were possible to keep homeopathy from being inexplicably muddled up with non-evidence-based naturopathy (where your treatment may have negative side effects), unfortunately mixed up with anti-”allopathy” (where you forgo a more medically-effective treatment), or inescapably tied to anti-epistemology in general, it might even be a net good on its own.
If anyone has found that the placebo effect isn’t real, making scientific history by publishing your discovery might be of higher utilty than downvoting my outdated information.
The placebo effect is complicated. See e.g. this.
True. But am I just being biased when I interpret that as support for my claim? “Sham acupuncture” and even placebo pills given to people who are told they’re taking placebos both show significant positive effects. I’d be very surprised if placebo pills given to people who are told they’re taking real “homeopathic” medicine didn’t show real effects too.
What is your claim, precisely?
Sure, giving homeopathic pills to people is likely to make them feel better via placebo. But by the same reasoning, this will also work for voodoo rituals, holy water, and mind rays from outer space.
I’m not sure I know what point you meant to make by this.
I read Franklin’s advice as applying, and intending to be applied, quite readily in those cases where one’s interlocutor is totally and clearly wrong. The idea is that you take a certain roundabout approach to telling them that they’re wrong, without quite coming out and saying it straight out. The fact that they are wrong need not be in question; it’s merely a matter of which tactics are effective in convincing them. (The assumption, of course, is that you’re interested in convincing them.)
In any case, I am unsure in what sense your comment is a response to what I said… could you clarify?
The way I read Franklin’s quote is that if someone says “well, (factual statement X) is true, and from it I draw (unwarranted conclusion Y)”, we should claim to agree with him (because we agree with X) and act as though drawing conclusion Y is a minor flaw in his theory that doesn’t negate the fact that he’s basically correct.
But he’s not basically correct. He did invoke X, and X is true, but to say that he’s right, or even partially right, means he’s right about a substantial part of his argument, not that he’s based it on at least one statement that is true. A homeopath doesn’t become partly right just because he says “well, vaccines work by using a tiny amount of something to protect against it, so perhaps homeopathy can also use a tiny amount of a substance to protect against it”, even if the statement about vaccines is literally correct.
What do you think of the following?
‘If the data is good, but the argument is not, argue the argument (e.g. by showing that it doesn’t hold water). Don’t argue about the conclusion and point to the bad argument as evidence.’ (not a rationality quote, just curious about your reaction)
I think that is not what Franklin was saying.