[Alex]

I just think a lot of things have yet to be proved, but someday will be as our knowledge and technology increases.

That is what I mean by faith based. Despite a lack of evidence now, you believe it to be true and that evidence will come along somewhere down the road. You have faith that the things you believe are true and while eventual supporting evidence would be nice, it isn't necessary for your current belief. This is true of Christian Scientist and Filipino faith-surgeons as well.

Sorry for the unnecessarily lecture on double blinding but you're the one who said that science is mostly anecdotal, which it is not; it begins with anecdotes but properly treated the data becomes something greater than the individual points. I didn't realize you were just trying to be a pain in the ass, I'll admit to being gullible in assuming the conversation to be earnest. You also said you're skeptical of most things but I have seen any indication of that either.

I'm curious though, if you have four friends whose cancer has been cured by herbalists, why you wouldn't use it yourself? That's seems like a lot more evidence than you had for acupuncture (which was established by the diminishment of a toe bruise).

I'm not sure why you think crop circles are too complex for a conspiracy. I've personally been involved in the creation of two of them. They really aren't that hard to make. And are you aware that the most prominent theory (which, obviously, I think is wacko) for the microwave radiation (which, strangely, can only be detected by special machines in the hands of wackos) is that it is from a secret U.S.-owned weapons satellite and that the circles are the products bored technicians.

You say you don't believe in a form of energy that can't be detected but the altnerative treatment you say works believes in it. But you also say this energy form you don't believe in travels through meridians that also can't be detected.

As for the baby tabs, they aren't diluted to infinitesimal solutions. The dilutions are on the home page and indicate dilutions of 1:10,000,000 for the stronger stuff and 1:10,000,000,000,000 for the weaker stuff (though according to the theories of homeopathy the second is by far the stronger medicine.

This means that for 10,000 liters of solution, one mililiter of that will be the dissolved agent (for the irritability, wakefulness, and inflamation treatments). So odds are that in the microliter dissolved into a tablet of lactose you would get a few molecules). For the dentition stuff you will have one milliliter of dissolved substance in 10 billion liters of solvent. A billion gallons would be a swimming pool 50 feet wide, ten feet deep, and 216 miles long. But keep in mind that by modern standards these are really weak medicines appropriate for infants. To get the full effect you'd have to dilute that down to galactic proportions.

I know we're just talking in circles. The way you view the world is fundamentally different from the way I view it. But this is the paragraph that sums it up for me:

Then the results can be twisted whatever way they want them to be depending on who's funding the study. Of course, most research isn't anecdotal. And mainly, I was just being a pain in the ass. I put little stock in many studies though, for the above reason.

Medical science is not perfect and it takes side trips down wrong paths. But I fail to see how this failure you describe is avoided by alternative treatments. Imprecision and manipulation damns "traditional" medicine but somehow acupuncturists and homeopaths (but not brocolli wearers) avoid it? They aren't somehow interested parties in promoting their preferred results?

Vive la difference. It is obvious you think my take on this is amusingly something or other and vice versa. There'll be no convincing of anybody and we'll just go on being perplexed in the other. I do have to ask, though. Are you one of the people who listens to Coast to Coast late at night and finds themselves nodding their head a lot whispering "yeah, that makes sense; that explains everything?"