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Interesting article on homeopathy - from a medical perspective

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tomos:
I'm really surprised that no-one seems to acknowledge or agree with my problems with the presentation of this article (the Guardian one from Ben Goldacre)

Judging by what he's saying, he is reacting against, well, lots.
But unfortunately reacting is a key word.
Look at it this way, if a kid is obnoxious to you & you're obnoxious back, what do you get -
escalation.
Exactly the same with adults, families, countries, or followers of X or Y, whatever.
I'm coming down hard on Ben Goldacre it's because that's the article posted here,
if I read a similarly patronising & not objectively presented one from a homeopath I would give it a hard time too.

I'm not questioning his facts here, I'm questioning the patronising and rude presentation of same in the Guardian article.
It's as I say unfortunate because he is actually reasonably fair in terms of not seeing the medical community as a bed of roses etc..
I also think it's unfortunate because if he has a message for people, for example who dabble in homeopathy but don't know much about it this patronising tone is not going to win him any converts.
It is an article for the converted and an "up yours" message to homeopathy.
But maybe that's what he wanted... :-\

and he's responding to an article by a novelist - what's going on there ???
maybe that's the problem - it's not scientific/objective/polite because he's responding/reacting to a novelist...
actually the Lancet article is scientific, with references, and not rude etc.
Dont know why he feels he has to be patronising and rude for the other one then...

Darwin:
Tom - I dug (but not very hard) for the Guardian article that he was responding too, but couldn't find it. In light of your posts here, it would be interesting to see if the tone of that article might have influenced the tone of his, if you follow (so I really wish I could find it)... Anyway, I'm going to go back and re-read his piece, because I didn't actually find it patronising and offensive  :tellme:

Darwin:
Er... I guess I didn't look at all for the Jeanette Winterson article because I just found it very easily:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2209998,00.html

Right, reading both now.

Darwin:
Well, my first observatin is: how the heck did I miss "Society of Homeopaths" in my first reading of the Goldacre article?! After that, I'm not sure what to make of the tone of the his piece - not being a homepath, or indeed ever having taken a homeopathic remedy, my initial reading of the article didn't flag any rudeness or patronising over/undertones. Having read through this thread, and having noted Tom's comments, I can see how it would be offensive to homeopathic patients. You can't call the practitioners of homeopathy morons without indirectly calling their patients the same or worse! The Jeanette Winterson article is not written in an aggressive style so its tone cannot be invoked to explain the tone of Ben Goldacre's response to it.

Reading the Goldacre piece again, I think that its tone can be attributed to a genuine sense of alarm on his part. Although I've not tried homeopathy, I have read articles - there is even a semi-regular series in one of the local papers - by homeopaths and have been quite alarmed by their tone and their calls to reject mainstream medicine. I believe that this is what Goldacre is responding to and I think his frustration shows through. Should he have written so bluntly? I don't know. I think that he called homeopaths "morons" in an attempt to get what he refers to as "Homeopathy fans" (presumably homeopathic patients) attention and in hopes that it would make them think.

Lashiec:
Hey, Darwin, more reading for you :)

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