2010 UK Anti-Homeopathy Campaign:

Consumer Health Digest [2009-12-24 (#09-52)] has announced / relays this message:

"skeptics in the United Kingdom have announced their intention to raise public awareness that homeopathy is quackery. The campaign will launch early in 2010. People who wish to join or monitor the campaign can register on http://www.1023.org.uk/ ."

Note: homeopathy is, of course, part of naturopathy's absurdity (e.g.: here, here).

002. at that link, we're told:

"homeopathy is a pre-scientific and absurd pseudoscience. Yet it persists today as an accepted complementary medicine, largely because people don't know what it is. The 10:23 Campaign aims to show the public what homeopathy is and explain how we know it doesn't work. It will launch in early 2010.

Note: the campaign,  '10 to the 23rd', has the motto "Homeopathy: There's Nothing In It".  The name of the campaign seems to be an abbreviation for 'Avogadro's Number' which is often quantified as 6.022 x

10²³. 

NDs Coward & Lewis Absurdly Defend Homeopathy as "Medicinal Science" - Citizen-Times, 2009-06-25:

here, I detail the absurd claim of two Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine [SCNM] ND graduates that homeopathy is a "medicinal science" [see 001., below]; while, overall, homeopathy is "utter rubbish" and "a classic pseudoscience" [see 002., below]:

001. Coward, S. (ND SCNM) and Lewis, K. (ND SCNM) state in the Citizen-Times article "Misconceptions Aside, Homeopathy Has Stood Test of Time" {2009-06-25}:

"homeopathy is a 200-year-old medicinal science [...unlike] Zicam [...which is] an impostor [...because] typical homeopathic remedies are much, much more dilute, often so dilute there are no molecules of the original substance left [{yikes !!!}...yet] the assertion that homeopathy is not supported by quality research is false [{oh really}...] studies of true homeopathy [...] show both safety and effectiveness [{oh really}...overall,] homeopathy has stood the test of time."

Note 01: AANP NDs take a national board exam that labels homeopathy "clinical science". SCNM -- the alma mater of these NDs -- labels naturopathy overall, including its requisite homeopathy , science in its web article "The Naturopathic Physician":

"naturopathic doctors['] practice is based on the same basic biomedical science foundation that allopathic [!!!] practice is [...we use] natural modalities such as [...] homeopathy [...] a licensed naturopathic physician (N.D.) attends a four-year professional level naturopathic medical school and is educated in all of the same basic sciences as an M.D. [...and they take] rigorous professional board exams [...] the Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine requires four years of professional level study in the medical sciences."

Note 02: by the way, the President of CEO of SCNM, who is simultaneously the President of the AANMC -- Mittman, P. (ND NCNM 1985, DHANP AANP), 2007 AANP Physician of the Year -- is a homeopath.

Note 03.a.: Coward also tells us at his practice's web page, per "Homeopathy":

"homeopathy is a scientific method of treatment."

Note 03.b.1..: Lewis tells us at her practice's homepage shared with ND E. Lewis:

"we are experts in both the science of medicine."

Note 03.b.2. and Lewis tells us in "What is Classical Homeopathy?":

"homeopathy is a science."

002. homeopathy, is -- of course, as these NDs has stated above -- 'nothing but water'. E.g., Novella, S. (MD GUSM) recently wrote in "Homeopathy Awareness Week":

"I would like people to be aware of the fact that homeopathy is a pre-scientific philosophy that it is based entirely on magical thinking and is out of step with the last 200 years of science [!!!]. People should know that typical homeopathic remedies are diluted to the point that no active ingredient remains, and that homeopaths invoke mysterious vibrations or implausible and highly fanciful water chemistry. I would further like people to know that clinical research with homeopathic remedies, when taken as a whole, show no effect for any such remedy [...] I am all in favor of homeopathic awareness. The scientific community should use this week to make the public acutely aware of the fact that homeopathy is, put simply, utter rubbish. It is a classic pseudoscience and has no place in a 21st century science-based health care system."

Note: in other words, labeling homeopathy a "medicinal science" is absurd -- misconceptions aside!

003. warning, NDs are not the 'competent science-qualified physicians' that they claim to be.

The Academic Ethos of Phi Beta Kappa, & the Absurdity of UB Naturopathy - 2009:

here, I compare two aspects of my personal history: my Phi Beta Kappa 'ethical obligation', so to speak [see 001., below]; and what I know about the University of Bridgeport College of Naturopathic Medicine's 'academic absurdity' [see 002., below]; and finally a warning [see 003., below]:

001. the Phi Beta Kappa Society states in "About PBK":

"Phi Beta Kappa celebrates and advocates excellence in the liberal arts and sciences. Its campus chapters invite for induction the most outstanding arts and sciences students at America’s leading colleges and universities. The Society sponsors activities to advance these studies — the humanities, the social sciences, and the natural sciences — in higher education and in society at large [...it is] the nation's oldest and most widely known academic honor society [...PBK's motto is] 'love of learning is the guide of life' [...it was] founded December 5, 1776 [...and] for over two and a quarter centuries, the Society has embraced the principles of freedom of inquiry and liberty of thought and expression [...and] personal freedom, scientific inquiry, liberty of conscience and creative endeavor."

Note: I was inducted 1994-05-04 at the City University of New York's Lehman College.

002. meanwhile, academic naturopathy -- pathologically, deceptively: in a most unexcellent, antiscientific and absurd manner -- at the University of Bridgeport:

claims that the profoundly nonscientific vitalistic sectarian

[e.g., 2006-2008 catalog, p.291: "students will gain an important perspective of the vital force and its role in the healing process"]

survives scientific scrutiny [they categorize such as nonsectarian "science"]!

Perhaps UB's motto should be: 'deception is the guide of naturopathy', because such sectarian vitalism has been profoundly science-ejected minimally for several decades.

I attended UB's ND program 1998-2002, and complaints are on file with the relevant overseers.

003. warning:

003.a. if you are a free-thinker:

"freethinkers strive to build their beliefs on the basis of facts, scientific inquiry, and logical principles, independent of any factual/logical fallacies or intellectually-limiting effects of authority, cognitive bias, conventional wisdom, popular culture, prejudice, sectarianism [!!!], tradition, urban legend, and all other dogmatic or otherwise fallacious principles. As such, when applied to religion, the philosophy of freethought holds that, given presently-known facts, established theories, and logical principles, there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of supernatural phenomena";

003.b. and believe in "liberty of thought":

"freedom of thought (also called freedom of conscience and freedom of ideas) is the freedom of an individual to hold or consider a fact, viewpoint, or thought, independent of others' viewpoints. It is closely related to, yet distinct from, the concept of freedom of expression";

003.c. and are inquiring per "freedom of inquiry",

003.d. and you are attempting to fulfill that PBK ethos of 'scientific and philosophical excellence':

beware of the absurdity known as naturopathy, an 'unethical sectarian pseudoscience.'

Naturopathy et al. as Antiscience & Unfair Trading [UK] - Bodmer, Colquhoun, Ogilvie, & Rothwell in The Times 2009-01-30:

here, I excerpt from two 2009 letters in The Times [UK; see 001. & 003.b, below] and a 2007 article in Nature [see 003.a., below], per alternative medicine as 'unfair trading and antiscience' -- and I make 'the Connecticut Connection' [US] per the University of Bridgeport's College of Naturopathic Medicine [UBCNM] and Acupucture Institute's [UBAI] "Health Sciences Programs" false labeling [see 004., below]:

001. a recent letter to the editors of The Times, titled "The Question About Alternative Medicine: The Government Needs to Make Unified Decisions on Alternative Medicine" (2009-01-30) states:

"we would like to congratulate the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Salford, Professor Michael Harloe, for his principled decision to drop all the university’s programmes associated with complementary medicine within the School of Community, Health Sciences & Social Care. This includes its 'homeopathy in practice' degree [...] although universities are now taking sensible actions, government policy in the area of regulation of alternative medicine is in urgent need of revision [...] one of the 31 commercial practices that are in all circumstances considered unfair is 'falsely claiming that a product is able to cure illnesses, dysfunction or malformations'. One part of government seeks to endorse unproven and disproved treatments, at the same time as another part makes them illegal [...and it is signed:]

Sir Walter Bodmer -- FRCPath, FRS, FMedSci, FRCP (hon), FRCS(hon), Cancer & Immunogenetics, Laboratory Weatherall, Institute of Molecular Medicine, Oxford.

Professor David Colquhoun --FRS, Research Professor of Pharmacology, University College, London.

Dame Bridget Ogilvie -- AC, DBE, FRS, FAA, Visiting Professor at UCL, past Director of the Wellcome Trust.

Professor Dame Nancy Rothwell -- FRS, FMedSci, FRCP (hon), MRC Research Professor, University of Manchester

[I have included their entire credentials as provided by Colquhoun's post]."

Note: FRS is "Fellow of the Royal Society", "the national academy of the sciences in the United Kingdom." Excellent!

002. Colquhoun additionally writes, in "A Letter to the Times, and Progress at Westminster" (2009-01-30):

"you can’t hope to regulate alternative treatments in any sensible way while continuing to push under the carpet the crucial question of which ones work and which don’t [...] we are talking about 'bachelor of science' degrees in things like homeopathy and naturotherapy [!!!; essentially, both are 'the naturopathic'!]. These are things that are not science at all. In fact they are antiscience to their core [this links to the Nature article {see 003.a., below}...] in the same [Times] issue, there was a related article by the Times' education editor, Alexandra Frean: 'Universities Drop Degree Courses in Alternative Medicine' [see 003.b., below]."

003. Colquhoun in Nature 2007, and The Times' Frean 2009:

003.a. Colquhoun writes in "Science Degrees Without the Science" (2007-03-22) :

"the least that one can expect of a bachelor of science (BSc) honours degree is that the subject of the degree is science [...] most complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) is not science because the vast majority of it is not based on empirical evidence [...e.g.] homeopathy [...] is much more like religion than science [...] many of the doctrines of CAM, and quite a lot of its practitioners, are openly anti-science [...] gobbledygook is being taught in some UK universities as though it were science [...] homeopathy is the most obvious delusion because the 'medicine' contains no medicine [...] other CAM courses are in aromatherapy, acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, herbal medicine, reflexology, osteopathy, therapeutic bodywork, naturopathy, ayurveda, shiatsu and qigong. None of these is, by any stretch of the imagination, science, yet they form part of BSc degrees [p.373]."

Note 01: for some context regarding this journal, Wikipedia describes Nature as:

" a prominent scientific journal, first published on 4 November 1869. Although most scientific journals are now highly specialized, Nature is one of the few journals, along with other weekly journals such as Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that still publishes original research articles across a wide range of scientific fields."

Note 02: the HUGE IRONY that has not been lost on Dr. Bob Ironic [who is not a Dr. of any kind!] is that NATURE-opathy which markets itself as NATURE-al, has nothing to do with the modern scientific context of Nature!

003.b. the Times' Frean, A. (? ?) writes in "Universities Drop Degree Courses in Alternative Medicine" (2009-01-30):

"Universities are increasingly turning their backs on homeopathy and complementary medicine amid opposition from the scientific community to 'pseudo-science' degrees [...] the decisions by Salford and Westminster open a new chapter in the fierce debate about the place of awarding of Bachelor of Science degrees in subjects that are not science."

004. 'the Connecticut Connection' - a nonscientific mascarade, by extension:

004.a. the Univeristy of Bridgeport labels naturopathy and acupuncture "health science" [falsely; I'll specify also that all of naturopathy claims itself overall as scientific; note that both programs are run by AANP NDs!];

004.b. while:

004.b1. 'the entire naturopathic' is based upon a sectarian idea [vitalism, for starters {acupuncture is essentially vitalistic as well}; supernatural-spiritism, teleology and etc.] that is severely science-ejected [HUGELY!!!] while the University labels itself nonsectarian [how is a mandatory, dogmatic, supernatural, autoentheistic figmentation -- a 'purposeful life spirit bioagency equated with god / the divine' (UBCNM); or animism / animatism (UBAI) -- NOT sectarian?];

004.b2. while UBCNM's ND contains mandatory courses in:

homeopathy [which the NPLEx national board exam that UBCNM has designed their curriculum towards calls homeopathy a "clinical science"!], and ayurveda [which UB labels a "natural science"!];

004.b3. while UB has an "Acupuncture Institute" that grants an M.S. [yet, acupuncture is based on prescientific premises and is essentially an eleborate placebo mascarading as a potent disease-treating system!];

004.b4. and both programs practice out of a supposed "Health Science Center" as part of a "Division of Health Sciences".

Where's the Qi? aka Vote to Defund NCCAM, & Absurdity:

here, I encourage readers to vote to defund the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine [NCCAM; see 001., below {thanks PZ}], and I illustrate the absurdity of claiming as a foundation for a "science" a premise that lacks any scientific support [see 002., below]:

001. vote to defund the NCCAM, per:

"any legitimate, promising medical treatment can be funded by one of the existing NIH Institutes. There's no need for a separate center for 'alternative' therapies - but what has happened is that NCCAM has become a last refuge for poorly designed, unscientific studies that couldn't get funded through the normal peer-reviewed process [...] the fact is that after >10 years, NCCAM has not yet found a single piece of positive evidence for any of these methods, which include acupuncture, 'qi', homeopathy, magnet therapy, and other treatments."

Note: qi, essentially, does not exist in any scientific sense.

002. absurdly, meanwhile, naturopathy:

002.a. uses the overall labels of "health science", "branch of medical science", "science-based" and such.

002.b. has as its keystone premise both vitalism and supernaturalism.

002.c. labels homeopathy and acupuncture clinical sciences.

002.d. while vitalism is science-ejected, supernaturalism is science-ejected, homeopathy is an elaborate placebo, and acupuncture is an elaborate placebo.

Note: so, the 'without scientific support' or 'explicitly science-ejected' is equal to the 'explicitly labeled scientific' for naturopathy...

absurd.