User:Woozle

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This is Woozle's "internal" page, for making notes on things; you are welcome to poke around in this area all you like, but most of it probably won't mean much to you.

Woozle's "external" page for general public consumption is here.

Practical Stuff

Somewhat Esoteric Stuff

Somewhat Outdated Stuff

Other places to find me

Essays

See also Issuepedia, where I've written a lot of stuff, and the Woozle category.

Bookmarks

Most of my bookmarks get filed in HTYP or Issuepedia, but sometimes I just don't have time to file everything and I dump them here so I can close tabs in Firefox.

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already watched

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2009-02-12

2009-01-22

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Notes

Homeopathy

from when Tene asked for the theory behind homeopathy; there isn't really anything scientific, which may mean it's all bunk (and indeed that's the prevailing sentiment), but...

(02:33:22 PM) Woozle: Ok, theory...
(02:35:21 PM) Woozle: (And I'm not claiming this is scientific, just maybe a place to look.) Reality is generally more complicated than the models account for. We think of molecular movements in a gas or liquid as being "random", but there are probably patterns at some level.
(02:37:34 PM) Woozle: Things vibrate. Things have resonances. It seems maybe a little unlikely, but couldn't it be that the particular shapes of the molecules present would influence those patterns in some way? The deadly problem with that idea is that once the influence is removed, you'd think that the patterns would deteriorate back to the default pretty quickly.
(02:37:44 PM) Woozle: So maybe that doesn't work.
(02:38:49 PM) Woozle: The other area to look is in quantum theory, which new-agey people love to use as an explanation for everything -- so I'm hesitant to bring it up -- but it seems possible to me that there may be some kind of pattern-retaining effect there.
(02:41:25 PM) Woozle: The main thrust of my personal advocacy for homeopathics, though, is on two fronts... (1) it is kind of a "chew toy" (placebo, if you prefer -- though I *swear* I came across an article throwing serious doubt on the "placebo effect"... maybe I dreamed it, because I haven't been able to find it again) which prevents people from using our poorly-run healthcare system;
(02:41:40 PM) Woozle: (Well, not *prevents... I guess I mean "pre-empts")
(02:42:05 PM) Woozle: (except in emergencies, when it's really needed... thus applying the adage "if it ain't broke, don't fix it")
(02:43:41 PM) Woozle: (2) homeopathic doctors tend to be much more in it because they want to help people, rather than in it for the paycheck -- so even if 90% of the time they're giving you treatment which actually has no effect, it at least isn't the latest sample from Glaxo which might actually be harmful... and they're more likely to pay attention to what's going on, and direct you to conventional treatment *if needed*.
(02:46:14 PM) Woozle: (3) people should have the right to make their own mistakes. It seems to me that we do far too much protecting people from their own mistakes by "controlling" substances or outlawing them completely, when what we should be doing is educating and tracking. The big (mainstream) drug companies seem to want to make the situation worse; the homeopathy movement is fighting that tendency, even if it's actually making money off snake oil.
wiki file: https://hypertwins.org/mw/index.php?title=User:Woozle&oldid=11838