Pseudoscience and the Paranormal

accounts for the curative properties of the homeopathic medicine.

The idea that water could remember substances that it used to contain received much publicity in 1988. Researchers (Davenas et al. 1988) at a French laboratory reported in the prestigious scientific journal Nature experiments that they claimed proved that water that used to have particular antibodies in it still had a strong immunological effect even after the original solution had been diluted so that only one part in 10²⁰ of the original remained. In practice, this meant that not a single molecule of the original substance remained in the solution. Nature published the paper, in spite of serious reservations about its scientific merit, because the journal’s editors considered the topic of such great interest. However, they took the extraordinary step of publishing along with the paper a critique based on the findings of a team of investigators sent to the laboratory to check the methods used. This is very reminiscent of Wood visiting Blondlot’s laboratory to check on N rays back in 1904 (chapter 1). And, like Wood, the Nature investigating team, which included Nature editor John Maddox and magician and psychic investigator James Randi, found serious problems in the lab. To assess the immunological effect of the diluted antibodies (of which, it will be recalled, none in fact remained due to the degree of dilution), a visual judgment, made by looking through a microscope, about the color of portions of cells called basophils was made. This subjective judgment was apparently done by one scientist who performed all the assessments in an unblinded fashion. The team found that, as Randi (1988–89) puts it, the laboratory “had omitted much negative data from their lab records because some mitigating circumstance had suddenly become apparent after it was discovered that a particular experiment gave negative results” (p. 144). In other words, negative results were explained away, after the fact, by one excuse or another, but positive results were retained. The Nature team tried to replicate the original findings. Working in the same laboratory and using the same equipment, but putting in place proper experimental controls, no positive results were found. Gardner (1988–89) has provided a lengthier discussion of this matter.

The director of the laboratory in which the experiments discussed above were carried out was Jacques Benveniste, who reacted strongly to the criticism of his laboratory’s methods (Benveniste 1988). But his reply did not really address the specific issues of shoddy methodology that were raised by the critique; rather, it consisted largely of insults aimed at the Nature investigating team. Benveniste continued his interest in homeopathic treatments and in 1997 announced a finding even more momentous than his 1988 claim. He had discovered, he said, that homeopathic treatment effects could be transmitted over telephone lines and even sent by e-mail! (Sheaffer 1998).

Regardless of how weird the proposed mechanism of a treatment is, the treatment should be subjected to objective tests to see whether or not it is effective. Even if there is very little a priori chance that a treatment will be effective, tests showing that it does not, in fact, work can be very valuable in showing the public that money, time, and effort should not be wasted using it. Homeopathy has been subjected to numerous tests of its effectiveness and has consistently been found to be wanting in this regard. Two reviews (Hill and Doyon 1990; Kleinjen, Knipschild, and ter Riet 1991) covered more than one hundred different studies of homeopathic treatments for numerous different conditions ranging from stroke and hypertension to arthritis and bowel problems after surgery.

Hill and Doyon (1990) limited their review to studies that used randomized clinical trials to compare homeopathic treatments to either no treatment, a placebo, or standard treatment. They concluded that “the results do not provide acceptable evidence that homeopathic treatments are effective” (p. 139). Kleijnen, Knipschild, and ter Riet (1991) reviewed 107 studies of homeopathic effectiveness. Their conclusion was a cautious one, to the effect that the results of the studies reviewed were “positive but not sufficient to draw definitive conclusions because most trials are of low methodological quality and because of the unknown role of publication bias” (p. 316). In effect, this is a nice way of restating the maxim that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof. And homeopathy, at the time of this review, had not met that requirement. The authors did make an important point toward the end of their paper, where they noted that several earlier studies had suggested that homeopathic treatments did have a positive effect on bowel movements after surgery to the abdomen. But a later, well- controlled study using a large number of subjects failed to find any such effect. This is a common pattern in the study of any therapeutic approach. Early studies, often done with fewer subjects than should have been used and suffering from various methodological problems, turn up what looks like positive evidence for the treatment. Later, better-controlled studies do not.

I should also mention one interesting aspect of homeopathy that I was unaware of until I read Kleijnen, Knipschild, and ter Riet (1991). Homeopathic treatments are apparently, at least in Europe, widely used in agriculture. The authors cite a review (Scofield 1984) of this field that concluded that “despite the great deal of experimental and clinical work there is only little evidence to suggest that homeopathy is effective. This is because of bad design, execution, reporting or failure to repeat experimental work” (Kleijnen et al. p. 321).

More recently, Wagner (1997) has reviewed studies published since the two previously mentioned reviews. Once again, the results were not supportive of any effectiveness of homeopathic treatments. Wagner discusses one study of homeopathic treatment of diarrhea (Jacobs et al. 1994) that is often touted as proving that homeopathic treatment works. Children in Nicaragua suffering from diarrhea were given either a homeopathic treatment or a placebo. It is important to note that the children with the worst cases of diarrhea were not included in the study, a serious biasing problem. In addition, there was not a third group that got a diarrhea treatment known to be effective. These problems aside, the results were far from impressive. The children in the two groups were evaluated each day for a five-day period. There was a significant difference favoring the homeopathically treated group only for the third day. The two groups were the same on the other four days. This is not, to say the least, terribly impressive evidence for homeopathy. A more detailed critique of this study has been published by Sampson and London (1995).

Since the Wagner (1997) review, Taylor et al. (2000) have published a study in which homeopathy was compared to a placebo for treatment of “allergic rhinitis,” nasal congestion caused by allergic reactions to pollen, dust, and the like. On a measure of the amount of relief provided, the homeopathic treatment and the placebo were rated as equally effective by the subjects. The homeopathic treatment group did show a greater change in a measure called nasal inspiratory peak flow. However, as Ramey (quoted in Raso 2000) notes, this measure is “simply too unreliable to be of any use as a clinical measurement” and it is no longer used clinically “as a measurement of anything” (p. 41).

THERAPEUTIC TOUCH

The idea that “laying on of hands” can treat disease dates back thousands of years. As was seen in chapter 10, it plays a major role in religious faith healing. In this section I will discuss a more secular version of the laying on of hands, one that has come to be known as Therapeutic Touch and since the mid- 1970s has become more and more popular in the nursing profession. The term Therapeutic Touch is a misnomer since the practitioner, as he or she is called, does not actually touch the patient, but moves the hands over the patients body, keeping a space between. This version of the laying on of hands was developed in the 1960s and 1970s mostly by Dolores Krieger, a nurse on the faculty at New York University in New York City, and Dora van Gelder Kunz, an Indonesian-born mystic and self-claimed clairvoyant. Stahiman (2000) provides more details of the history of Therapeutic Touch.

The idea behind therapeutic touch is that by passing her hands over a person’s body, a Therapeutic Touch practitioner can detect the aura or human energy field. Further, in individuals who are ill, the practitioner can, through some mechanism that is never specified, detect disturbances in the field and “realign” the field, helping to restore health. This set of claims raises three specific issues that are, at least theoretically, separate. The first is whether the human energy field, as postulated by supporters of Therapeutic Touch, exists at all. The second centers around the question of whether practitioners can, in fact, detect any energy field that may exist. The third is the empirical question of whether Therapeutic Touch really results in demonstrable improvement over and above placebo and other effects. These three issues will be considered in order.

The question of whether a human energy field actually exists is really a question of physics. Does the human body actually generate some kind of field that might be detected by human hands? The answer is yes. The human