However, he refuses to debate people he calls “the IGNORANTS” (his capitalisation). From his website we learn that “the IGNORANTS” are:
This means that even Professor Edzrd Ernst, professor of Complimentary Medicine in the United Kingdom and co-author of Trick or Treatment, does not qualify because he “is not registered as a Homeopathic Practitioner in South Africa”.
Basically Dr. Prinsloo wants to sully the name and misrepresent the positions of all critics and never enter into a debate. The logical fallacies he uses in defense continue to pile-up.
James
(tip o’ the “USS Dauntless” cap to Captain Klingon)
I also noticed that the Biocura website features its own “Detox” calculator, which would mean that any normal human being would have “toxicity” somewhere on his scale (even if you score zero - which is impossible - you still have “toxicity” which must be treated).
That response by Dr Prinsloo is one of the funniest things I’ve read in some time. The only mildly distressing part is that it is – apparently – not a parody.
The good doctor’s definition of “evidence” clearly bears little relation to that used by most scientists. He also appears to differ with his homoeopathic peers on the question of dilution of medicinals. Does he hold with one of homoeopathy’s founding principles that potency increases with dilution? If so, he should have little trouble providing his critics with an unequivocal demonstration of homoeopathy’s efficacy above placebo instead of a loose collection of self-serving testimonials and anecdotes.
How about it, Dr Prinsloo? Oh wait, he’s not going to speak to us because we’re IGNORANTS. The question is, how does he know that? Or is everyone who disagrees or even differs with him on homoeopathy an IGNORANT? Certainly, his definition thereof makes this outcome likely because any detractor can simply be dismissed due to meeting one or more of his criteria for being an IGNORANT.
This means that even Professor Edzrd Ernst, professor of Complimentary Medicine in the United Kingdom and co-author of Trick or Treatment, does not qualify because he "is not registered as a Homeopathic Practitioner in South Africa".
Only in Souf Af-frieka ;D
Oh wait, he’s not going to speak to us because we’re IGNORANTS.
I won’t be holding my breath. I think his understanding of placebo treatments is also flawed and he also appears to have a knee-jerk distrust of scientific proof.
(Emphasis from the source material)
It reminds me somewhat of the Parapsychologists who try to redefine scientific proof because their effects disappear under scrutiny. They try to justify it as “the effect must be real, therefore the testing is wrong”.
However, the controversy over dilution levels still rages unabated between homoeopaths and their critics, and, perhaps a little surprisingly, among homoeopaths themselves. Says Wikipedia on the topic:
(My emphasis.)
Yes, that’s a good comparison: If you can’t score, shift the goalposts. If that also doesn’t work, change the rules of the game and call the referee and linesmen names. With regards to homoeopathy as a curative modality, Wikipedia puts it quite clearly (and it will be noted that the passage is not marked as being contentious):
Thanks for the link Mefiante, it is an excellent read.
In the latest news (from Angela, the Skeptic Detective) Dr. Prinsloo has noticed all of the renewed attention and has started to edit his website. Some of the ad hominems have been removed (notably “the IGNORANTS” and “the filth” that he claims was spread by his critics).
An entire page (the page detailing the “proof” of homoeopathy) has been removed.
I suppose that the peer review will only include peers of homoeopathy. If so I expect it will be back in pretty much its original form once the heat has died down.
The various responses to Dr Prinsloo’s impostures posted at various places in the SA sceptical blogosphere make for some entertaining and really interesting reading. Thanks and well done, all around!
More than once the relevance is questioned of Dr Prinsloo’s observation that sceptics of homoeopathy are often also sceptics of religion – and it is only right that said relevance be questioned. To be sure, the good doctor’s intent with this sleight of conflatory non sequitur well-poisoning should be plain enough: Atheism is the severest form of heresy and there’s the common myth held on no good grounds among the religious that such heretical sceptics must be inherently bad people, however well they may hide it. Such bad people cannot be trusted to question anything because they are, well, bad for questioning or disbelieving even the most sacred of cows. Therefore, a critique of homoeopathy by a religious unbeliever is instantly dismissible as highly suspect because such a critic doesn’t believe what many others, perhaps most others just know to be true.
And that, among a few others, is one reason why I labelled the venerable homoeopath’s broadside against sceptics “one of the funniest things I’ve read in some time.” (An incidental irony in this religio-homoeopathic to-and-fro is, of course, that the best cure for blind belief is to take blind belief only in extremely highly diluted concentrations. This appears to be one of a very small number of pathologies that are evidently treatable by resort to homoeopathic principles.)
