Debate fail

[pseudomonas]

The Guardian runs a "You ask, they answer" thing. This time, it's Neal's Yard. For some reason, they've chickened out without giving a single answer. I wonder why this could be? They also seem to be deleting any mention of the incident from their Facebook wall. Goodness knows why.

Comments

[pseudomonas]

I agree that some of the commenters have been insufficiently polite. I think on a forum like this that they might be justified in not replying to the ones that are actually name-calling. But there are a few general themes that are clear (and which have been stated inoffensively), and they could (if they had any answers) address the questions of determining efficacy and/or the ethics of selling placebos in a couple of tidy posts without interacting with individual questioners.

Given that the stimulus article included an invitation to "grill them" over the malaria debacle, I think a vigorous discussion of the ethics of this sort of thing was rather expected and encouraged.

[1ngi]

"discussion of the ethics of this sort of thing"

Yes - I love the beauty/herbal products but feel concerned about the homeopathic stuff - it would have been interesting to have heard their point of view. I'm a little disappointed actually.

[nanaya]

Oh yes, and I think they should at least try to address some of those general questions about evidence of efficacy. But I fear that the rudeness has given them the excuse not to - "I don't expect to be spoken to like that! Accusations of bad faith, huff huff" - and makes it harder to put them on the spot about just why they weren't responding. I just can't help feeling that over-eager questioning has played into the hands of people who want to portray homeopaths as 'oppressed'.

I think I missed the malaria debacle, what was it?

[pseudomonas]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/may/07/1

[nanaya]

Ah thanks. Very interesting. And worrying.

[pseudomonas]

Yeah; it kind of affects the context of the debate a bit.