My twitter account “@standupmaths” is the expected mix of mathematics and jokes (with possibly more maths than people initially expect before they slowly acclimatise). But every now and then it is hijacked by myself as I release a flood of tweets to taunt a homeopath. Most likely Dana Ullman.
People often ask why I take my collection of teachers, maths enthusiasts and comedy-fan followers and use them as a digital stick to poke a homeopath. The subject-matter itself comes as no surprise – my views on homeopathy and Alt Med in general are well known – but rather that I would waste my time pestering someone who is so extremely unlikely to change their mind.
My policy on these things is simple; I will not waste my time arguing with people who adamantly believe in homeopathy, biodynamic cosmic energy, astrology, hidden messages in prime numbers, the Moon landing hoax or anything else on the made-up-shit-spectrum except for one tiny exception: If there’s an audience.
Twitter is the perfect combination of ready-made audience and homeopaths who will engage with you despite themselves.
My main conversational partner is Dana Ullman. This is because there are plenty of easy targets in the Land of Hippies but I don’t want to just go after some poor retiree at home who has developed an interest in homeopathy and a website from the late 90s. That would prove nothing. I go after Dana Ullman because he is described as “homeopathy’s foremost spokesman”, is a member of the Advisory Council of the Alternative Medicine Center, is a prolific author and writes for the Huffington Post. Here’s his wikipedia page. And, unlike some other Alt Med people, he doesn’t realise that just shutting-up and never responding is the most-effective defence against skeptics.
I was bored at home on a sick-day yesterday, and as I was curled-up on my sofa I noticed Dana had tweeted a link to some nano-particle research. I’m not going to bore you with a transcript of such an encounter (you may have already had to live through it in real-time), but here’s a rough outline with my chat with him last night:
This is a brilliant Alt Med strategy where they link their therapy (homeopathy) to a legitimate scientific area of research (nano-materials) and then put forward proper scientific papers from that area as proof of their Alt Med methods.
As always, I then ask him how nano-particles can explain such things as “homeopathic dolphin sonar”, or any of the other non-matter things homeopaths claim to be able to dilute with water. The fantastic thing about the Alt Med continuity is that even the most serious practitioners will never break-rank and say how ridiculous the fringe aspects are, and so they all end-up looking silly by association. I have no doubt Dana hates the people who claim to dilute the Berlin Wall as a remedy, but he can’t publicly say so.
The closest he has ever come was probably yesterday, when he decided to call me out as making up the dolphin-sonar people for use as a straw-man argument. Thankfully diluted dolphin-sonar has been sold by Ainsworths – homeopathic suppliers to the Royal Family – and is still readily available online.
This follow-up is a classic move where he completely changes argument-tack (suddenly my made-up straw-man is real and he’s defending it) as well as packing the tweet with several other layers of wrong as a kind of ‘argument chaff’. I consider this burst of logical fallacies as a DoS attack on your brain’s logic systems; there’s suddenly so many incorrect points to counter that you lose track of the original argument.
Tactics aside, the question still remains: why would I engage with these people even given there is an audience in attendance? It’s because while I have no intention of ever changing the arguer’s mind, I do hope to increase general awareness of just how ridiculous some aspects of Alt Med et al are. A lot of people are vaguely aware of homeopathy as a kind of natural herbal thing (much like thinking chiropractors are kinda just a type of physiotherapist) but when they see a leading practitioner trying to defend diluting nano-particles of dolphin-sonar, they see it for the 18th century wishful-thinking it really is.
There is no better way to show people how silly homeopath is than to get the people who believe in it, to discus and defend how it works in a public forum.
So, sorry to everyone who follows me on twitter for maths+jokes and then is suddenly subjected to some member of the pseudo-science community dancing about, trying to justify their wacky beliefs. Just take not of how ridiculous their arguments are and then wait for normal numerical tweets to resume.
And for those of you who follow me for the Alt Med bashing: don’t forget that it’s you guys I’m trying to wean onto maths.
I think homeopathy has a good place in modern society where it’s used as a placebo.
It’s a far better alternative to the antibiotics that have otherwise been prescribed by GPs in the past (openly) and often still currently (against NHS advice).
This has often included antibiotics (dangerous!) but also relatively harmless pills like Vitamin D, which has no significant effect.
If we compare homeopathic medicines to placebo, there is no difference. That’s clear.
But, if we believe the placebo effect is a real effect, then homeopathy is an extremely effective and safe way of delivering a placebo effect.
Extremely effective – because the hype and marketing around it only serves to increase the placebo effect. Extremely safe, if you believe it has no effect – compared to drugs which are used that may have harmful side-effects.
I believe that the homeopathy practitioners you are arguing with are doing more *good* than harm. Whether or not you agree with their motives, or the truth of what they are saying, it is good for society that homeopathy exists and fills this role.
I enjoy your maths tweets, but I do not really enjoy your argumentative tweets on this subject.
As a mathematician and skeptic, I thoroughly enjoy both sides of your tweets. And it is amazing just how stupid Dana Ullman can manage to make himself look….
Ronald, I don’t think one can be quite that blasé about it being a good way to deliver placebos. There’s a power-play at work, a subtle form of bullying in pushing such an elaborate and absurd belief system onto people who are in a vulnerable state. This is something homeopaths would never consider because they’re child-like in their lack of self-awareness and intellect (hence their becoming homeopaths – they actually believe in this stuff). It’s not going to empower ill people in the same way that giving them the genuine good news – “you’re going to get better and you don’t need pills” – could, if the message was communicated clearly and with sympathy.
I think this assumption that people need pills no matter what is a fallacy, as is this assertion that there’s a widely-held faith in homeopathy. Most people I know either haven’t heard of it or only know it for being a con (the only ‘hype’ I’ve seen for homeopathy has been exposés!).
I appreciate the efforts of Matt Parker, Ben Goldacre and others in exposing the slippery arguments alt-med people peddle. As Matt says here, much as there’s a Groundhog Day feel to such exchanges for those of us who’ve been through them 100 times already, they do still put the information out there for people lucky enough not to have had that misfortune.
I’ve lost one close family member (by which I mean they’ve either become or confirmed themselves as being too stupid to converse with, and unwilling to listen to any of the concerned people around them) through their getting into the homeopathy cult. That might sound melodramatic to someone who hasn’t had to spend time around people who get really caught up in this stuff, as it’s such a ridiculous little world and no one’s pointing a gun at anyone’s head. But it’s no joke when it’s happening to someone close to you. This person’s attitude has been as divisive and insulting as you’d expect of a Scientologist who insists everything’s the fault of the lizard people, or a Jehovah’s Witness who insists everyone around them is going to hell.
One thing I would say to Matt and others is that characterising these people as crystal-hoarding new age hippies lets them off the hook. I’ve come into contact with enough of them, and they’re more David Cameron than Icke – really straight-looking, but walking disasters. They’re actually worse than you imagine in that way.
Math + Alt Med Bashing = (A fine job you are doing)^(keep it up)
I like the DoS attack metaphor. I think this kind of thing can also be described as making so little sense, it’s “not even wrong”.
@Roanld
There are two main problems with tolerating Homeopathy as a Placebo.
1. People use it as Alternative – not Complimentary medicine – that is they will forgoe actual medical treatment, in favour of this Placebo – not often a problem for mild symptoms, but can be life threatening if followed blindly.
2. Science has advanced over the last few hundred years by the proliferation of truths. As soon as you start lying to people (“This pill will genuinely help your headache”) then science starts to slow down its progress (Why research actual cures for the cold when echinacea will relieve symptoms in people who belive it will)
On top of that Homeopaths are just effectively stealing money from people, selling water or sugar pills at inflated prices because of a lie.
Dana Ullman is a gift to scepticism.
I too enjoy the back and forth with Dana and the rest of the alt med lot.
Lucia has said most of what I wanted to say to Ronald so I’ll simply add that just because homeopathy works by placebo and homeopathic remedies themselves have no effect that doesn’t make them safe. I suggest reading this as a brief introduction: http://www.1023.org.uk/whats-the-harm-in-homeopathy.php
I also think it’s rather naive and quite silly to expect you to stick to maths and jokes. It’s not like @standupmaths is a corporate account pushing a specific agenda.
Also, thanks for the DEAD sticker. Stuck it up on my desk as a reminder of the possibility that I may one day be attacked by a shark in a theatre/basement room.
James.