John Benneth is a homeopath, and he wants to explain something to those godless scientists.
Atheists hate homeopathy because [this is going to be good] they worship science[wait for it…], and not knowing the science behind it they thinkthe pharmacy is inert [wait for it…]. They think the solute molecule disappears due to dilution [get ready…], when in fact it is “quantumized,” ionized into plasma by dissociation into the diluent as a perpetuating entangled wave[BOOM! Kook explosion!].
Whew. Was it good for you, too? Quantum plasma entangled argle bargle bibbity boo!
Wait. After the climax, there has to be a little letdown.
Some people just need to shut up about homeopathy until they learn more about it and it’s actual chemistry…
I call that “smugma,” the slime you get from arrogant cranks trying to look down on real scientists.
And I suppose he has some kind of evidence for this quantum plasma entangled argle bargle bibbity boo? Otherwise, it almost sounds like the ravings of a lunatic.
That is a fascinating definition of plasma right there.
It’s a homeopathic argument that is so dilute it has become a quantumized, ionized plasma dissociated into the diluent.
Woo hoo! I think I just had a quantumgasm…
Vibrations. I mean succussion. Where’s the quantum succussioning vibrating gibbledly bitty burgle fulapruyizating?
That does it. I’m ready to cash in on this nonsense, by selling a line of “quantumized” health foods (especially the so-called “superfoods”): quantumized whole grains, quantumized acai berries, quantumized pomegranate juice….
And then I’ll have an extra-premium (i.e. twice as expensive) line of “artisanal quantumized” foods….
I feel unclean from reading that.
screechymonkey@6, Make sure they are “chemical-free”.
It has a effect… that of a full strength placebo, and that is real and measurable.
I love to drink filtered water. Too bad I can’t get rid of the taste of dinosaur anuses… I just can’t handle the dilution!
“Atheists… they worship science”
but somehow they are anti science too!
> […] it should be pointed out that proof for homeopathy is iron clad: Homeopathy as a doctrine and homeopathy as a distinct, separate pharmacy […] are sanctioned in and by law.
It’s legal, therefore it’s proven true.
Welp, i can’t argue with that.
This quack is one of the earliest entries in The Encyclopedia of American Loons:
The entry goes on to point out poopyhead has had a run-in with this kook before (in 2010). Most of the links are now dead, but the kook’s reply to poopyhead (FIRE PZ MYERS!) is still live:
Possibly the best comment: “‘Pharmaceutical Companies can be bastards — therefore homeopathy works.’ *headdesk*”.
Actually, no its not.
The quack says (in this quantum plasma entangled argle bargle bibbity boo rant) “It’s like astrology[…]”, referring to homeopathetic quackery.
I suspect that’s about the only true statement.
“Atheists hate homeopathy ….”
Nope. I have been an atheist since 1985 or so and only let homeopathy go around 2000. I still have a soft spot for it; I would very much like it to work. It simply doesn’t.
We can look at water using zero field NMR. No difference between plain water, and homeopathic dilutions. All you have is water and the wonder drug PLACEBO. Large red sugar pills make the best placebos.
Ah, but placebo’s don’t ionize into plasma by dissociation into the diluent as a perpetuating entangled wave argle bargle bibbity boo! Wereas “real” homeopathetic quackadoodles do.
#13: Oh, right…you had to remind me that this guy has even drawn a portrait of me before.
I see whole new realms of pseudo-scientific medical woo coming from this. He is, of course, right, in that, according to a non-local quantum interpretation, the diluent must have a “perpetuating entangled wave” relationship with any other matter with which it has ever interacted. And any matter with which that matter has interacted. And so on, back to the beginning of time.
Now, we’ve also all heard of the calculations that any glass of water must have a high probability of containing at least one water molecule that was previously consumed (and voided) by [insert name of any historic person here]. Together, these two factoids (both arguably true) mean that a homeopathic remedy may — no, must — be influenced by the plasma entangled argle bargle bibbity boo of a medication prescribed by Hippocrates himself! Like Pooh-Bah, it can trace its healing ancestry back to a protoplasmal primordial atomic globule.
Nay, it carries the imprimatur of the Great Physicians of the Crab Nebula! It inherits its medicinal powers directly from those of the first pure elixirs that stocked the selves of the Big Bang Biologics Boutique itself!
On the other hand, so does a nice deep draught from your cat’s water bowl.
That’s “shelves of the Big Bang Biologics Boutique”. Auto-correct doesn’t help with homonyms. Pooh and Bah.
Whaddya mean, homeopathy doesn’t work? Coffers everywhere are being filled with the proceeds of the sale of homeopathic remedies! Free market!! Rah rah rah!!!
Scientismist:
Some of this seems a little misleading/confusing. The result is that A can be in an entangled/nonseparable quantum state with some B (not every B) that was in A’s past light cone, which is when/where they interacted and got their A+B state. There aren’t two quantum states but a single one for the whole thing, and experiments on either subsystem can of course reveal the nonlocal correlations. (You might wonder now what a “quantum state” is, as opposed to some other kind of state….) If your physics doesn’t have this feature, or if it doesn’t describe it correctly/fully, then it’s not quantum physics, no matter your interpretation: you’re doing classical physics or who knows what else you might be doing while calling it “physics.” If there are any realistic quantum theories that are local in the appropriate sense (like possibly a many-worlds theory), they’ll still have to somehow describe these very same entanglement-related phenomena in order to be satisfactory.
Anyway, there’s no need for any particular state like that to be “perpetual” (i.e. lasting an infinite or near-infinite time). Decoherence generally washes these things out, so to speak. (The incoherence of crackpots like the one quoted above is another matter.) Indeed, we don’t already have quantum computers and such, even though the theory is basically understood, mostly because it’s so hard to actually maintain it for a practical length of time in a useful machine.
Scientismist @21:
You get entanglement in any interpretation, local or not.
@Nerd #18:
Stop being so reductionist, you … you … reductionist!
With all this quantum bollocks, I was getting my Benneths & Chopras mixed up!
Are they perchance related?
Well, I just love saying, “entangled argle bargle bibbity boo!” Worth a laugh every time.
Homeopathy prompted PZ Myers to come up with that memorable phrase, therefore homeopathy works.
I’m waiting for an explanation as to why our drinking water isn’t high strength beaver piss.
How did people survive the era of lead piping? Surely some of them drank the tap water, which should have had fatal levels of homeopathic quantum lead.
@Scientismist
If that’s so, wouldn’t any glass of water also have a high probability of containing a molecule of [whatever substance a homeopathist might wish to dilute]?
And, if so, who needs the homeopathist?
And how can I profit from my amazing revelation?
–a molecule of water that once was in contact with a molecule of the desired substance, I mean.
An oldie but a goodie
scientismis@21: “He is, of course, right, in that, according to a non-local quantum interpretation, the diluent must have a “perpetuating entangled wave” relationship with any other matter with which it has ever interacted. And any matter with which that matter has interacted. And so on, back to the beginning of time.”
You don’t, of course, need quantum theory at all to come to that conclusion: classical Newtonian/Laplacian mechanics suffices (although for reasons which quantum facts undo). In the paragraph that eventually spawned the term “Laplace’s demon”, Laplace observed that—accepting those mechanics (realized as a system of second order differential equations)—”An intelligence that for a given instant could know all the forces animating nature, and the respective places of the beings that compose it, were it also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, should embrace in one formula the movements of the largest bodies in the universe and of the lightest atom: nothing would be uncertain for it, and the future like the past would be present to its eyes.” Later, Charles Babbage (of “difference engine” fame) applied that idea to support an argument in “Natural Religion”: “Whilst the atmosphere we breathe is the ever-living witness of the sentiments we have uttered, the waters, and the more solid materials of the globe, bear equally enduring testimony of the acts we have committed. If the Almighty stamped on the brow of the earliest murderer,—the indelible and visible mark of his guilt, he has also established laws by which every succeeding criminal is not less irrevocably chained to the testimony of his crime; for every atom of his mortal frame, through whatever changes its severed particles may migrate, will still retain, adhering to it through every combination, some movement derived from that very muscular effort, by which the crime itself was perpetrated.” I don’t know of anyone who’s tried to apply the argument to homeopathy; I guess classical mechanics isn’t sexy enough.
leerudolph @34:
Only to those who haven’t studied it. Poisson brackets are hot!
Wait ’till someone realizes that a very small amount of water has deuterium in it, and starts bottling tap water with flavoring, coloring and sweetener and calls it “HEAVY WATER”
Cut me in for a slice and I’ll buy a lambo, ok?
Poisson brackets are hot!@#35:
Poisson brackets are hot!
Smells fishy to me.
Me@#37:
Smells like the failure mode of clever.
One man’s viande is another man’s poisson
Laplace is making a different argument, though. You need the equations of motion and the state of the whole universe (good luck with that), and then the rest follows, so you can predict or retrodict everything about everything. You wouldn’t get that with a quantum state for just a pair of particles (or whatever it may be), entangled or not, because that’s not the whole universe. (Maybe some other universe only has that and nothing else, but it isn’t an interesting place to live. Also, the food is terrible.) That is, Laplace wouldn’t have claimed that you could look at one water molecule (or even an ocean of them) and deduce everything else that there is. There’s obviously lots of other billiard balls on this table that you also have to keep track of, if you want to know what the table will look like at some other time, not just the ones you happen to be interested in or just the ones that are supposed to have some kind of special magic power.
I don’t often post comments here, but at a recent Skeptics in the Pub talk about homeopathy the speaker mentioned the FDA report into the the UK manufacturer, Nelsons, and one of their findings:
A Nelson & Co., Ltd. 7/26/12
@smellyoldgit #27:
No, just entangled.
Homeopathy is not a crock of shit. Homeopathy is a crock of highly purified water which once contained a single molecule of skatole.
Agenoria @41
Those bottles got an extra dilution, so they are super-duper effective! Some people might even overdose!
But I don’t have a cat! Unless of course I have a homeopathic, quantumised cat, ionized into plasma by dissociation into the diluent as a perpetuating entangled wave. It’s so difficult to be sure.
No-one has a cat. Some cats, however, have hairless apes…
Interesting solution to Schrödinger’s cat: Dilute the cat until you can be essentially certain there’s no molecule of cat left to put in the box. Therefore, the cat in the box is neither alive nor dead, as the cat is not in the box.