I am a homeopath. There, I said it. A homeopath for over 10 years, and loving what I do. Homeopathy and other complementary therapies have been under increasing attack by a vociferous, media-savvy minority of self-styled skeptics. The ferocity of attacks on everything that won’t easily fit into the ‘skeptic’ paradigm seems to be intensifying. The phenomenon fascinates me: why is this happening?
So the purpose of this blog is two-fold: to let off steam, to raise a small voice – a ‘minimum dose’, if you will – against a Sea of Troubles. And to explore how the strange phenomenon of a quasi-scientific ‘skepticism’ that has lost the questions and so believes it has the answers can be understood in a wider context, in the times and tides of man.
Once upon a time I engaged with ‘skeptics’ on their own cyber-turf – trying to bring reasoned debate to their fora on a scientific and philosophical basis, evidence-based and honest. What I experienced was a baying mob – not science but cyber-bullying, not debate but cheap laughs, outright lies, semantic tricks, half-understood dialectic claims: who scores wins? Not me. I gave up. For a bit.
Writing here, I am no longer trying to convince any ‘skeptic’. Though I extend an invitation to swap that hard, edgy K for a nice, harmonious, open C. I will be subjective, partisan, partial, opinionated. And considered. Such as they are, based on experience, observation and thought, I find I can trust my abilities to think, feel and reason – within the parameters of innate doubt and fallibility.
Your views and explorations are welcome. Comments are moderated:
Anything rude, sarcastic or objectionable will not be published. Likewise there is no need for further ‘200 meta-studies show no proof…’ chestnuts; we’ve all seen those many times. Skeptic pointscoring is best kept within the many fora where everyone agrees. To keep clutter down, comments may not show up if they simply appear to repeat opinion that is widely found else-web. Robust and interesting contributions will otherwise be published, no matter their stance. Particularly welcome: fresh jokes about any form of CAM and about science; personal experiences using complementary therapies – anecdotal of course; any information or discursive view that will help the reader try and make sense of the phenomena raised in the blog. And links to open access original research papers. Comments may be edited or cut.
© Doug Savage 2005
scepticalenquiry 
Good point, Penny. Closer to our own time, fundemental aspects of nuclear physics and molecular biology were met with scepticism or outright disbelief for some decades.
Look forward to more of the same: let’s see if any sKeptics can ever even engage in debate? From past form, it does look like the main modus operandi is the same as those who challenged Galileo by refusing to look down the telescope. His response?
““All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered.
The point is to discover them.”
And of course, to be OPEN to their possibility…