Thread by @drg1985

Short thread: The chair of the Society of Homeopaths is spreading anti-vaccine propaganda. But that really shouldn't surprise anyone. Here's why, and why pseudoscience is far from harmless (1/n) dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7…

Homeopathy is a long discredited pseudoscience, rooted in both medically debunked vitalism, its central "like-cures-like" / "extreme dilutions make effects stronger" tenets easily disproved by basic physics. I've been harping on about it too long! (2/n) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111….

..now, in effect, when you buy homeopathy products, you are effectively buying inert sugar pills. But, some argue, what's the harm? I mean, if it makes you feel better, than what's the big deal? They may even mention the extraordinary power of the placebo effect (3/n)

..well first, as @david_colquhoun will explain, the placebo effect isn't especially strong at all and statistical regression to the mean explains much more of the perceived benefit, but that's not my main objection: the real harm is more subtle but far more damaging (4/n)

The first objection is practical - most of the things one would take homeopathy for are trivial, & would improve themselves. But in cases where more serious intervention is vital, homeopaths frequently miss it, or even advise against real effective treatment, delaying help (5/n)

This can and does kill people, by causing delay or rejection of effective therapy, or when worrying medical conditions are missed. For just a sampling of this, you can look here - - but bas as it is, that's not the worst harm at all..(6/n) whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html

The real harm is that by there is no way to accept pseudoscience or pseudomedicine without rejecting reality. If you truly believe that alternative medicine works, then you have to explain away why modern science does not support it. That's where things go very wrong... (7/n)

So returning to the anti-vaccine movement / alternative medicine. It is entirely unsurprising purveyors of alt-med reject much modern medicine: it undermines their belief. @EdzardErnst found 83% of homeopaths rejected vaccination, which I write about in The Irrational Ape (8/n)

Since the dawn of COVID-19, alt-med figures (especially homeopaths) have been prominent in organising Anti-mask protests around the world. To take a local example, the Dublin anti-mask protest was arranged by a homeopath but this is common worldwide (9/n) irishtimes.com/news/ireland/i…

..None of this should surprise us - this is just WV Quine's "Web of Belief" again (see appended tweet) - to accept homeopathy works in spite of the evidence against it, you have to reject mainstream medicine - especially vaccination. (10/n)

https://twitter.com/drg1985/status/1297214370460598277

..remember a few years ago when Andrew Wakefield, that absolute fraud, was feted in London? Yeah that was a bunch of Homeopaths that invited him over - I didn't precisely hold back when asked for comment but the homeopaths in questions were as bad thetimes.co.uk/article/mmr-fr… (11/n)

In July, @EdzardErnst wrote this on SoH too. In conclusion, we need to stop being surprised when we see overlap between alt-med and anti-vaccine / anti-mask stuff, because they all pivot on the same, tired rejection of science. Fin. 12/12, n = 12 edzardernst.com/2020/07/the-uk…