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Right then, we’ve seen that homeopathy is based on the long-disproven theory of bodily humours, that the supposed active ingredient has been diluted out of existence, and that the principle of “like cures like” is outrageous to the point of being harmful (e.g. in the case of burns and scalds).
What haven’t we dealt with? How about: how homeopaths actually decide what (not) to put in their sugar pills and double-distilled water? It’s called ‘proving’, and the process uncovers a whole new layer of fetid WTF in the fossilised midden of this antediluvian woo.
I’m not going to lift the rules off any old website, either. I’m going straight to the top. Ladies, gentlemen (and others), I give you: The European Central Council of Homeopaths and their Guidelines for Homeopathic Provings. This is official stuff, none of your bloggery-pokery. It even has a Warning on it: No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission of ECCH. Fair Use flag hoisted and saluted at. Also, by putting it out as a public document I rather think you’ve shot yourself in the foot over the “no transmission” part.
So, what exactly is ‘proving’?
“Proving in Homeopathy is the administration of a medicinal substance to healthy persons in doses large enough to elicit a symptomatic response without causing irreversible toxicity, in order to determine its therapeutic properties.” (TheFreeDictionary 2008)
If you say so, guv. Personally, I would have thought it was for TheFreeDictionary to take its definition from official homeopathy literature, not the other way around… Hang on, I take that back, but award you a non-returnable WTF point. I just looked up the word ‘proving’ in TheFreeDictionary and the above doesn’t appear anywhere. Homeopathy isn’t even mentioned on that page, admittedly 4 years after the date cited, but still: homeopathy hasn’t changed in over 200 years, so there’s no reason to remove the definition if it was ever there. Briefly, ‘proving’ involves a group of people taking a homeopathic substance over a period and noting all “symptoms, modalities, time of occurrence and concomitants” on a daily basis.
Moving on. What constitutes a “medicinal substance” for homeopaths? There may be a clue in the text. Ah, yes:
Provings have been seen to be an extremely important part of homeopathic theory and a mainstay of its practice since the first proving of china by Hahnemann in 1790
“China” with a small ‘c’. The WTFometer goes ballistic and I fear the worst. A quick search yields nothing more than that it was identified as a treatment for intermittent fever. Somewhere, a part of me is wondering if they mean bone china or porcelain; the rest has scraped my jaw off the floor in order to deliver a hearty “WTF? Bitch Puhleeze!”. In any case, the point is: homeopaths can – and will – ‘prove’ anything. Seriously, anything. Soot. The light from Saturn. Chaffinches. Shipwrecks. Ivory from an African elephant (hmm…) Møøse. Indeed, this is fuckwittery of Pythonic proportions.
We can therefore take whatever we like, however fanciful, and use it in a homeopathic proving. The ECCH lays down some ethical and safety guidelines, which is laudable. There is also a suggested procedure, which includes using the (pseudo) Latin name wherever possible, doubtless because if people understood what they were supposed to be ‘proving’ they’d either freak out or die laughing. But what of the things they’re supposed to be testing? Some homeopathic remedies are based on substances that are rather worse than indigestible: deadly poisons like arsenic and strychnine. They can’t possibly be feeding them pure to people.
It is recommended to test using 2-3 potencies to ensure that as many and as much of the more subtle aspects of the remedy can be explored.
Potencies. Yes, of course. Bearing in mind that potencies (i.e. dilutions) of 12C or more mean there isn’t a single molecule of the original substance left, let us try to keep our faces straight during the next extract. After all, in a genuinely scientific study the P-word wouldn’t necessarily be out-of-place.
Placebo
The use of placebo serves as a means to increase participants’ attention; it increases reliability and enables clearer deduction of symptoms when set against those arising spontaneously in the general population.
Not a very good description of the use of placebo in a study and I’m not quite sure what they expect to achieve by “increasing participants’ attention”. Do they often get entries in participants’ journals along the lines of “Today I noticed I felt… OOOH SHINY! And that’s all for tonight.”? However, not at all unsurprisingly, using placebos in homeopathic provings can cause problems. No, seriously:
It should however be kept in mind that some authors have noticed proving symptoms in individuals receiving placebos as well.
Actually, that’s unkind (“No it fucking isn’t” – the SO). Homeopaths can tell you the difference between a placebo and a 30C potentisation as recommended for use in proving. It’s, er, quantum. Or nanotechnology. Or supramolecular. Or faster-than-light particles. Look, anything vaguely related to physics that appears in the newspapers will be claimed as proof that therefore unicorns. Advanced dumbfuckery, of course. It’s been shown that even experienced homeopaths can’t tell bottles of distilled water apart once you take the labels off. Let us wander casually over to the modus operandi, where some remarkable examples of biasing are on display
Participants day to day
- Participants should stick to their normal habits and way of life.
- An alternate view is that they should avoid all potential antidoting factors such as coffee, recreational drugs, camphor, eucalyptus, menthol and mint, and any substance that they are sensitive to, during the duration of the proving. Any use of these substances should be stopped in enough time so as not to influence the proving.
So there you are: your test subjects can either carry on as normal, or completely change their lifestyle. +3 WTF points for the pointlessness of that particular ‘guideline’. Good luck keeping most people off the coffee, gaspers and booze for any sizeable period of time. Of course, completely changing somebody’s lifestyle is totally unlikely to have an effect on how they feel from day to day. Idiots.
Let’s admire some more flaming Stupid in its natural habitat. I’ll just point out the finer specimens, for the sake of brevity.
Remedy taking
- Medication should be stopped as soon as clear symptoms develop.
- It is highly recommended that the supervisor be involved in determining initial symptoms.
- It has been observed that taking further doses after the initial symptoms develop may confuse the symptom picture and even pose a safety hazard. Therefore careful observation and sound judgement is needed at this phase.
So if “symptoms” – say, a cold or a squeaky Achilles tendon – develop, you stop the proving. Then, when it gets all better by itself, you will have whatever your homeopathic remedy is supposed to cure.
This next bit just shrieks reinforcing observational and confirmation bias via suggestion:
Participant-supervisor
- At the end of each day, symptoms have to be reviewed by participant and supervisor, investigated, clarified and recorded in detail. Supervisor should always seek to elicit any feelings and modalities that have been overlooked.
My emphasis. That sentence on its own would be enough to get the whole procedure thrown out as a complete masquerade and waste of everyone’s time. However, this is homeopathy, and so it’s just another nail in the already iron-heavy coffin of sugar-pill selling as a “science” (no, seriously, they claim this) and “evidence-based”. Well maybe it is evidence-based, but it’s fabricated evidence. In a UK court, that might be considered as ‘perverting the course of justice’ if a policeman or lawyer was caught doing that with a witness, and They Do Not Like It.
Duration of supervision
- The duration of supervision, particularly for those who clearly respond, should last a minimum of three months. They should also have a six month follow-up.
As I said earlier, good luck in getting a group of people to give up coffee, ciggies, alcohol, candy etc for that amount of time. You don’t even need to be a scientist, anyone with half a brain can see that homeopathic ‘proving’ is one big joke. There’s nothing scientific about it, it’s open to bias at every turn, and the “medicinal substances” used are a total farce.
Homeopaths. Remind me again why they’re allowed to use words like ‘medicament’, ‘treatment’ and ‘cure’ without being arrested for practising medicine without a licence, will you?
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