Warning: Miracle Mineral Solution

[Asta Kask]

FDA Warns Consumers of Serious Harm from Drinking Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS)
Product contains industrial strength bleach

There's a new cure-all out there called Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS). Like all of them it claims to detoxify the body. Like all of them, it cures pretty much anything. Like all of them, it warns you to stay away from those nasty doctors.

However, while most of them do nothing, MMS (if mixed according to the instructions) contains industrial-strength bleach (http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=6430). It can make you very ill. It can kill you. It is apparently rather popular, so someone on this forum may well be taking it, which is why I post this warning here. Please, if you or anyone you care about take this quack remedy, stop or tell them to stop.

[The Vorpal Tribble]

Mmmmm, snakeoil...

[IonDragon]

Well... if you're DEAD, you can't still be sick can you?

[Don Julio Anejo]

Industrial-strength bleach? Please, it's organic and all-natural :wink:

Using it to scare us away is a conspiracy by the big pharma to keep real cures away from us so they can sell us their quack anti-inflammatories, steroids and neuromodulators which only cure one thing and cost lots and lots of money. And "real" doctors are deep in their pockets! :smile:

[SurlySeraph]

Well... if you're DEAD, you can't still be sick can you?

Of course you can be. Any of your cells that are still alive can be killed.

EDIT: And by killed, I mean "Rejuvenated and exfoliated by Miracle Mineral Solution, the product you should be buying!"

[RabbitHoleLost]

Industrial-strength bleach? Please, it's organic and all-natural :wink:

Using it to scare us away is a conspiracy by the big pharma to keep real cures away from us so they can sell us their quack anti-inflammatories, steroids and neuromodulators which only cure one thing and cost lots and lots of money. And "real" doctors are deep in their pockets! :smile:

BUY MY (legal) DRUGS
[/Pharm Tech]

[Coidzor]

Whoa, whoa, whoa, you can sell bleach for human consumption now?

*goes to invest in Clorox*

[Knaight]

There's a new cure-all out there called Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS). Like all of them it claims to detoxify the body. Like all of them, it cures pretty much anything. Like all of them, it warns you to stay away from those nasty doctors.

However, while most of them do nothing, MMS (if mixed according to the instructions) contains industrial-strength bleach (http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=6430). It can make you very ill. It can kill you. It is apparently rather popular, so someone on this forum may well be taking it, which is why I post this warning here. Please, if you or anyone you care about take this quack remedy, stop or tell them to stop.

So, it sounds like it would come out as significantly less effective than the standard placebo if put through a test. That's actually pretty impressive.

[IonDragon]

So, it sounds like it would come out as significantly less effective than the standard placebo if put through a test. That's actually pretty impressive.No, it should be more effective! You see, this destroys infected cells at a rapid rate (as well as uninfected cells, but they were not counted in the survey because it was too depressing). Whereas a placebo does nothing, this does real good! (*cough* and harm *cough*)

[Coidzor]

So, it sounds like it would come out as significantly less effective than the standard placebo if put through a test. That's actually pretty impressive.

And unlike homeopathy, the toxic substance isn't so dilute it's schrodinger's cat's guess as to whether any made it into the stuff one just consumed.

[742]

its not industrial strength bleach! its good, wholesome natural strength bleach.

[golentan]

Personally, I distrust anything that markets itself to me as a "Miracle" anything.

Do not invoke words to the effect of "We got lucky, we don't know why" if you plan on me buying your product. If I need a miracle, I hope it will make it's own way to me. For everything else, I prefer "planning" and "solid research foundations" by "experts" like "doctors" who have spent years learning their craft and performing scientific mumbo-jumbo like "double blind studies" and "analytical toxicology" and "not pouring a MASSIVE BOTTLE OF CHLORINE into orange juice and having me drink it."

In fact, prior experience with the kind of person who tries to make me ingest large volumes of potent oxidizers makes me most inclined to pull on a gas mask and go for a firearm.

What sort of... so and so can look themselves in the mirror selling poison to the terminally ill?

[Rutskarn]

If you're planning on putting something called Miracle Mineral Solution into your body, you probably don't listen to the FDA that much anyway.

[Magdela]

If you're planning on putting something called Miracle Mineral Solution into your body, you probably don't listen to the FDA that much anyway.
I know someone who thinks the FDA is withholding the cure for cancer so the government can make money off the sick people.:smallsigh:

They would never buy this though.

And as Vorpal Tribble said...
"Mmmm, snake oil"

[IonDragon]

What sort of... so and so can look themselves in the mirror selling poison to the terminally ill?

Well I mean... They're going to die anyway... may as well take their money, it's not as if they'll be needing it.

[Eldan]

In that case... I don't know, but wouldn't it be cheaper to just fill a few bottles with water instead of poisoning them?

[Dr. Bath]

I've always found licking toads is the best cure-all around.

MMM-mmm! Toads!

[Adumbration]

I've always found licking toads is the best cure-all around.

MMM-mmm! Toads!

Frozen ones only. They lose their potency when they thaw.

[Rutskarn]

Well I mean... They're going to die anyway... may as well take their money, it's not as if they'll be needing it.

I'm guessing you're at least half-joking, but there's funeral expenses and making sure their heirs have something to be going on with.

[Mauve Shirt]

Frozen ones only. They lose their potency when they thaw.

Plus they make for a delightful summer treat when frozen as well as a cure-all!

[Project_Mayhem]

It's OK people.

We are mostly water. Bleach is mostly water. Therefore, we are bleach.

[Yora]

Personally, I distrust anything that markets itself to me as a "Miracle" anything.
Have you followed the link? :smallbiggrin:

The answer to AIDS, hepatitis A,B and C, malaria, herpes, TB, most cancer and many more of mankind’s worse diseases has been found. Many diseases are now easily controlled. More that 75,000 disease victims have been included in the field tests in Africa. Scientific clinical trials have been conducted in a prison in the country of Malawi, East Africa.
http://www.miraclemineral.org/

If you already lie out of your ass to scam some money, don't use tests in a prison in east Africa as your supposed source.

[Adumbration]

Plus they make for a delightful summer treat when frozen as well as a cure-all!

I'd say they are more of an early spring treat. That way you can gather them au naturel from the frozen swamps.

Cookies all abound for those who get the reference.

[Eldan]

It's OK people.

We are mostly water. Bleach is mostly water. Therefore, we are bleach.

Woah. You are seriously wrong here.

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

[ghost_warlock]

Well, if we can't drink the stuff, maybe we can soak our heads in it in case of squick?

[Project_Mayhem]

Woah. You are seriously wrong here.

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

Correction. Nathan Explosion (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Metalocalypse) is wrong.

I think there was a slightly bigger problem with the reasoning than that :smalltongue:

[Coidzor]

What sort of... so and so can look themselves in the mirror selling poison to the terminally ill?
Charlatans.

Well I mean... They're going to die anyway... may as well take their money, it's not as if they'll be needing it.
So you approve of little ms. whorecakes in the other thread, eh?

In that case... I don't know, but wouldn't it be cheaper to just fill a few bottles with water instead of poisoning them?

Murderous Charlatans.

[lesser_minion]

Woah. You are seriously wrong here.

http://www.dhmo.org/facts.html

When we've finished laughing at that, the phrase 'oxygen dihydride' is not synonymous with 'dihydrogen monoxide'. A hydride is a compound containing hydrogen in the -1 oxidation state (as opposed to the much more common +1 oxidation state).

[Eldan]

Yeah, I noticed. It has a few other mistakes as well.

[nihilism]

wow to think a miracle cure that doesn't mention herbs or ancient chinese secrets. still bs though

[Eldan]

My brother once did some temp work for a small local company. I think I have to share this.


According to their website, their funder was a psychic medium. So far, so good.
He claimed that he was getting messages from the ghost of a Russian quantum physicist from a parallel universe which was technologically more advanced than ours.
This allowed him, with the help of that ghost, to build an advanced machine which could "harmonize the quantum vibrations" (or something like that) of human beings to improve their health.

The entire document describing their history was a few pages long.

It was absolutely hilarious. I'm convinced they tried to just stick all the ridiculous stuff they could think off on there.

[IonDragon]

I'm guessing you're at least half-joking, but there's funeral expenses and making sure their heirs have something to be going on with.Yeah, at least partly. I'm not quite that big of a jerk. Close, but not quite.

So you approve of little ms. whorecakes in the other thread, eh?Is she cute?

[742]

the type to do something like that wouldnt think about the family though. its amazing the kind of monstrous BS can be rationalized when you value green pieces of paper more than human life.

[Christopher K.]

the type to do something like that wouldnt think about the family though. its amazing the kind of monstrous BS can be rationalized when you value green pieces of paper more than human life.

"And yet oddly enough, the little green pieces of paper were not the unhappy ones."

Oddly disturbing that I haven't heard anything about this being popular or even deadly here in Nebraska. People here in Lincoln(at least the people I hang out with) JUMP at that sort of stuff.

[Dubious Pie]

Has anyone seen the (http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/04/your_friday_dose_of_woo_dead_scientists.php) Tesla Purple Energy Shield™? (http://www.lifetechnology.org/teslashield.htm)

[Don Julio Anejo]

When it comes to things like these, I've found that the hardest part is convincing someone unfamiliar with scientific method that these things don't work.

- "See, it helped (insert random name here). That means it works."
- "It's called placebo effect. Take this *hands sugar pill*, it works just as well."
- "No, see, this really helps because it's (all natural/forgotten folk remedy/ancient Chinese/affects your spirit/other mumbo-jumbo), while that thing is just crap."
- "Okay, you can dance around in a circle around some eye of newt on a full moon, it's an ancient Chinese folk remedy that energizes your body with spiritual energy and cures diseases."
- either "Really? So, uhm, how exactly do you do it?", or "Yeah, now you're just making fun of me, but that thing is for real because it's (insert mumbo jumbo here) and because it helped (insert name here)."
- "How do you know it helped? Have you compared it to an actual treatment, like (insert drug here). Here, look at this science paper *pulls up paper from pubmed.*
- "That drug isn't going to help me, it's just some chemical made in a lab, while this is all natural and contains no chemicals (insert facepalm here)."

Worst part? My mom was like that. She finally started believing me after some weird Chinese lady pinched her a nerve somewhere in the spine while doing some weird massage/acupuncture thing, requiring some serious neurological treatment. Except now I waste my time researching every treatment she wants to try for every thing that's wrong with her (she's a hypochondriac, so yeah..).

[The Succubus]

Oh lord. I know this type of thing well - people are so desperate for a cure/easy fix/whatever that they will try anything and everything, except for the hard and difficult guaranteed sure fix. I have a special exception to Chinese medicenes - carving up dozens of threatened or endangered species just for some b***s*** placebo effect at best. Would you knowingly wipe out a species for an aphrodisiac or hangover cure? :smallfurious:

[Quincunx]

@/\: Being blessed with a mind which can do math, I do not understand how some people do not understand extinction, but it seems to be a common enough lack of understanding. Lose that, and using a resource to exhaustion is too easy. We made silphium extinct, after all, and that was a herbal medicine which actually worked*, not a nostrum with sympathetic/spiritual associations.

*Closely related species still exist and still have similar active chemical compounds, but in doses too low to be significant. An analogy would be if we managed to let tea go extinct but still had ornamental camellia plants.

*****

Worse than trying to re-prove the scientific method every time it's tapped, try getting those same folk to dissociate motive from result. Ye spume-caked gods what an impossible task. They're twice as bad about half the lies on offer, since they can be coaxed away from products like this one by proving that someone selling a harmful product has underlying ill will towards humanity (bad motive = bad result, that fulfills their logic), but will defend with especial vigor anything offered in a hopeful spirit which has no effect (good motive, no result? does not compute).

[Dubious Pie]

When it comes to things like these, I've found that the hardest part is convincing someone unfamiliar with scientific method that these things don't work.

- "See, it helped (insert random name here). That means it works."
- "It's called placebo effect. Take this *hands sugar pill*, it works just as well."
- "No, see, this really helps because it's (all natural/forgotten folk remedy/ancient Chinese/affects your spirit/other mumbo-jumbo), while that thing is just crap."
- "Okay, you can dance around in a circle around some eye of newt on a full moon, it's an ancient Chinese folk remedy that energizes your body with spiritual energy and cures diseases."
- either "Really? So, uhm, how exactly do you do it?", or "Yeah, now you're just making fun of me, but that thing is for real because it's (insert mumbo jumbo here) and because it helped (insert name here)."
- "How do you know it helped? Have you compared it to an actual treatment, like (insert drug here). Here, look at this science paper *pulls up paper from pubmed.*
- "That drug isn't going to help me, it's just some chemical made in a lab, while this is all natural and contains no chemicals (insert facepalm here)."

Worst part? My mom was like that. She finally started believing me after some weird Chinese lady pinched her a nerve somewhere in the spine while doing some weird massage/acupuncture thing, requiring some serious neurological treatment. Except now I waste my time researching every treatment she wants to try for every thing that's wrong with her (she's a hypochondriac, so yeah..).

My mother is like that, except maybe worse. :smallsigh: Except, she has not started to agree with me.

[The Succubus]

Oh, so if it's all natural, it's good for you? Now that's some logic I can have fun with.

"Ok, Mrs Dubblypants, you say you're suffering from earache but you don't want to take the medication I prescribed because, and I quote, "I don't want no nasty chemicals made in a lab". Well, you're in luck, because we're currently trying something called arachnatherapy."

"Oooo that sounds promising, not some scientific nonsense like antibiotics."

"Certainly not, ma'am. Now, if you just reach into this glass tank here and pick up this bird-eating spider....good.....now, hold it up against your ear and press down firmly on its head. You may experience some slight discomfort..."

"Ow!"

"Good. The 100% all natural spider venom coursing through your veins towards your heart and brain will soon stop you feeling any pain ever again."

"Oh thank you doctor, you're a true-" *keels over*

[Project_Mayhem]

I thought the bird eaters weren't poisonous?

Although terrifying in every way

[Eldan]

All natural? Can I recommend some all natural cyanide derivatives? Perhaps some unprocessed cassava root or bitter almonds? Snake venom's nice too.

[IonDragon]

All natural? Can I recommend some all natural cyanide derivatives? Perhaps some unprocessed cassava root or bitter almonds? Snake venom's nice too.
If you mix in some ipecac it makes it taste great and doubles the potency!

[Eldan]

Ooh, good one. If we leave out the snake venom, it's vegan, even!

[Setra]

Fun fact: Goat urine can be marketed as a 'natural flavoring'

Just saying.

[Eldan]

Well, yeah. Why not.

[deuxhero]

Can any Chemist in the Playground tell me what has volume (that is, exists outside of data/your head) and is not a chemical?

[Don Julio Anejo]

Can any Chemist in the Playground tell me what has volume (that is, exists outside of data/your head) and is not a chemical?
Uhm... space? Also, maybe dark matter. Physicists will probably correct me on this.

[Pyrian]

The question makes no sense, as stated. Light clearly exists, occupies volume, but does not exclude volume (meaning that photons can exist in the same space as other photons and indeed other particles in general).

Chemicals exclude volume for a couple of reasons, but mostly because electrons cannot occupy the same quantum state as each other. Ionized (free) electrons exhibit the same property without nuclei, and are therefore not chemicals. A neutron star certainly excludes its volume in a similar fashion, although one might describe it as a single, very large atomic nucleus; it cannot meaningfully undergo chemical reactions, though, so I'd say "neutronium" qualifies. Free neutrons even qualify, technically, although the amount of volume they exclude is miniscule. Other, hypothetical degenerate states of matter could also qualify, if they exist, which outside of maybe in a black hole they probably don't (we're talking things much denser than neutronium). I understand there are unstable particles that also exclude volume, but they're very short-lived.

[golentan]

The question makes no sense, as stated. Light clearly exists, occupies volume, but does not exclude volume (meaning that photons can exist in the same space as other photons and indeed other particles in general).

Chemicals exclude volume for a couple of reasons, but mostly because electrons cannot occupy the same quantum state as each other. Ionized (free) electrons exhibit the same property without nuclei, and are therefore not chemicals. A neutron star certainly excludes its volume in a similar fashion, although one might describe it as a single, very large atomic nucleus; it cannot meaningfully undergo chemical reactions, though, so I'd say "neutronium" qualifies. Free neutrons even qualify, technically, although the amount of volume they exclude is miniscule. Other, hypothetical degenerate states of matter could also qualify, if they exist, which outside of maybe in a black hole they probably don't (we're talking things much denser than neutronium). I understand there are unstable particles that also exclude volume, but they're very short-lived.

That's not true: Light that occupies the same space as a particle will move it, be reflected, or be absorbed, not coexist peacefully. It's just that a photon has a smaller area of occlusion than charged particles like protons and electrons.

Edit: Also, protons and electrons aren't chemicals unless they combine to form more complex matter, right?

[Don Julio Anejo]

@ Pyrian: pretty cool analysis :smile:

@/\: protons are still chemicals. They're hydrogen ions.

[The Succubus]

This is starting to sound like science to me. :smallannoyed: I'm thinking that this is against the natural order of things and therefore we must burn all scientists at the stake because it's just mumbo-jumbo.

I'm not saying science is always right but each time we rely on baseless hope over established fact, we're taking a step backwards. That's why I don't think doctors should prescribe placebos - instead, if we had the resources, we should refer them to counsellors, psychatrists and (proper) therapists to find out why there's this need for a placebo in the first place.

[golentan]

Stupid hydrogen ions... Okay, but electrons aren't chemical!

I don't know. Given that the placebo effect is a measurable, advantageous phenomenon wouldn't it be less reliant on science to fail to harness it simply because it conflicts with your personal view of how the world should work?

Plus, there's a certain point past which one has to say "Nope. I refuse to accept that. If it's true, I'll change it, if it's not, I'll disprove it, and if I can't, I'll die trying." What that line protects is a sure marker of the kind of person you are. Though that applies more towards ideals, and some people have a really messed up view of where to draw that line...

[Elder Tsofu]

The placebo effect relies on that you as a prescriber too think that it will work, or are such a good actor that you convey that anyway. You just have to be in authority and convince the patient that eating X will cure him/her.
Then a low percent will get better.
Problem is when doctors give antibiotics as placebo (for any small illness), and the general population learn to expect it. (its no proper treatment of my virus-infection if I don't get antibiotics for it!)

Modern science comes in when you have a substance and proves it better than placebo - thus adding effect unto the "man in white coat giving me a pill effect".

[lesser_minion]

Modern science comes in when you have a substance and proves it better than placebo - thus adding effect unto the "man in white coat giving me a pill effect".

Actually, that's the point where pharmaceutical companies do start being sneaky. Whether a new treatment outperforms placebo is not really important -- what is important is whether or not it outperforms the best existing treatment in some way.

Compared to some things out there, alternative medicine doesn't annoy me so much. It's more reasonable to assume that the practitioners themselves don't know what they're doing than it is to assume that they're actively deceiving people (although some alternative medicine practitioners are, presumably, doing precisely that).

[Don Julio Anejo]

The problem I have with alternative medicine is not the hippies who sell "all-natural" hemp oil to cure a vague feeling of general unease. What I don't like is how some people go out, get a naturopathy degree where even if they get some education in general biology, it doesn't go beyond the basics, spend all their time learning homeopathy, graduate thinking they're real doctors and then go into deceiving people to buy snake oil.

And if that wasn't the end, some of them convince people to pay for, frankly, extremely dangerous treatments like chelation which aren't needed unless you've got lead poisoning (and not the Mafia kind).

[lesser_minion]

Point. Alternative medicine courses are ridiculous and for an institution to offer one does raise serious questions about how that institution became accredited (assuming it was accredited).

Amusingly, Wikipedia actually has an article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_animals_with_fraudulent_diplomas) about cats that have been given degrees.

[Elder Tsofu]

Actually, that's the point where pharmaceutical companies do start being sneaky. Whether a new treatment outperforms placebo is not really important -- what is important is whether or not it outperforms the best existing treatment in some way.

Indeed, that is a major problem - especially if the best treatment itself haven't been tried against placebo for some reason. (ethics)
The best studies (as you probably know) have the new treatment against the best treatment and placebo in the same study, but that's usually unethical for more serious conditions.
Ethics can be a bother for science (sometimes), but certainly not as big a bother as scrapping the declaration of Helsinki would be for the test subjects.

But what I really would like to see is that some of the rich alternate medicine practitioners (they are out there*) did the right thing and organised some studies of impeccable quality for some of their treatments.

*Its not as they have to pour cash into expensive research and development units for their products/treatments.

[The Succubus]

That's nothing - in the UK, we have a freaking *hospital* dedicated to homeopathic "medicine". Millions of pounds spent every year on something *which has no scientifically proven benefits".

http://www.rlhh.eu/

[Pyrian]

That's not true: Light that occupies the same space as a particle will move it, be reflected, or be absorbed, not coexist peacefully. It's just that a photon has a smaller area of occlusion than charged particles like protons and electrons.I'm really not even sure what you mean by that. :smallconfused:

While it's certainly true that the photon, as the force carrier for the electromagnetic force, will tend to interact with charged particles, that still does not exclude sharing space with them, and indeed a photon can pass right through uncharged particles unhindered in any way. As an integer-spin 1 boson, it is not subject to the Pauli Exclusion Principle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_exclusion_principle) and can share its quantum state. On a side note, protons and electrons do not exclude each other, either, though they certainly affect each other. In a simple uncharged/unreacted hydrogen atom (or even as far as an uncharged helium atom) the central physical space of the atom is effectively shared by the electron and the proton.

...If light couldn't share space, lasers would be impossible, and light would expand like a gas rather than simply radiating. It would exert pressure on itself, so that the brighter a room was, for instance, the harder it would be to further illuminate that room, with additional light tending to flow out any openings. Basically, it would be a gaseous sort of medium.

I don't know where you got that "area of occlusion" notion at all. That sort of thing tends to have a lot to do with wavelength, so different wavelengths of light allow finer (or wider) maximum resolution. Electrons were used (in electron microscopes) to get finer resolutions, not worse ones. While sufficiently energetic light can beat that, eh, it still doesn't square with your argument against my statement.

[golentan]

Bah, that's not what I meant. I simply meant that light and matter in the same actual space will interact, and it WILL. Even in mediums that carry a given frequency of light, the presence of matter effects its speed. Lasers lose coherence over sufficient distance even in vaccuum. Yes, I realize this is a simplistic view, but if we're arguing pauli exclusion as determining whether something will be blocked or undergo sorbtion it opens (as you pointed out) a whole can of worms with regard to other particles. For all intents and purposes, light occupies volume and exerts pressure, with varying pressure exerted on varying other objects (much the same way as with fermions).

Besides, electrons are used for fine resolution microscopes because they have such a short wavelength and thus such a definite position (relatively).

[Pyrian]

I simply meant that light and matter in the same actual space will interact, and it WILL.Okay, but that's so general that it's not saying anything, given that all matter has gravity and gravity affects anything that can be said to have a position. I was going to write more on specific cases but it's kind of beside the point. You see, regardless, interaction is not exclusion, so I'm not sure why you were even trying to use the former to argue with my claim about the latter.


Lasers lose coherence over sufficient distance even in vaccuum.That's a diffraction effect originating at the laser itself. It has nothing to do with the laser's photons pushing each other away or otherwise excluding each other from their own states. ref (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction#Propagation_of_a_laser_beam)


Yes, I realize this is a simplistic view...I would have been happy to simply add some context or clarification, but you began this conversation by effectively claiming that basic tenets of modern physics are incorrect.


...but if we're arguing pauli exclusion as determining whether something will be blocked or undergo sorbtion it opens (as you pointed out) a whole can of worms with regard to other particles.The Pauli Exclusion principle is absolutely critical to explaining why electrons and therefore chemicals act in the way that they do. It is, in some sense, a fundamental reason for solidity in ordinary matter. All (or perhaps virtually all) chemical interactions depend on it. Given that the OP was looking for things that act like chemicals but aren't, I think it was the natural first thing to consider.


For all intents and purposes, light occupies volume and exerts pressure, with varying pressure exerted on varying other objects (much the same way as with fermions).That's an overstatement. I mean, it certainly spans volume, of course. It can act kind of like a gas, but really only kind of. It would have been valid to answer the OP's question with the assertion that light occupies volume and isn't a chemical, but it's too obvious. It seemed to me that the OP must have meant excluded volume like a block of solid matter, which light emphatically does not do under normal circumstances (short of explosive energy, I suppose, or various degenerate states which necessarily involve fermions anyway).


Besides, electrons are used for fine resolution microscopes because they have such a short wavelength and thus such a definite position (relatively).That's what I was talking about. It proves your claim that light has an especially narrow "area of occlusion" compared to ordinary matter (which interacts primarily through electrons) incorrect, no?

[Coidzor]

Compared to some things out there, alternative medicine doesn't annoy me so much. It's more reasonable to assume that the practitioners themselves don't know what they're doing than it is to assume that they're actively deceiving people (although some alternative medicine practitioners are, presumably, doing precisely that).

Look. They're trying to make money. Many of the greatest evils of humanity have been done in the name of greed. So, yeah, I don't buy that they're innocent, especially not if they're actually motivated by the profit they're turning in stated and lived ethos. The ones who are good enough not to seem slimy, yeah, they may just be deluded, but they generally aren't at the forefront to cash in on it properly anyway. Anyone looking to make money off of the suffering of their fellows is going to be usually evil, especially if it's by giving them something that five minutes of reading will show to be bunk. Y'know, like how goblinoids are usually evil.

[golentan]

"Occlusion," "Position" =/=
"Occlusion," "Exclusion" =/=

Assuming reverse polish style notations can be applied to equivalencies, naturally.

Occlusion covers things that will either Exclude or Sorb other things. Do you deny that a photon coexistent with matter will either be sorbed or cause one of the objects to move to a more tenable position? Cuz that was my original point.

Even without diffraction from the source, coherence diminishes over distance due to slight electromagnetic interference and spacial distortion. Coherence is always a local phenomenon.*

Plus, several basic tenets of modern physics are blatantly false. I mean, they're a logical conclusion to draw given current levels of technology and intelligence, but so was Aether.

Pauli is necessary for matter-matter interactions, but does not serve adequately for a general purpose discussion of occlusion or volume.

*I need to stop playing devil's advocate. For the record, I know that once an argument begins I will take the opposing side and embattle myself until the argument is done, and this side note was never part of my original point until you tried to make it so. I will not let go.

[hamishspence]

Plus, several basic tenets of modern physics are blatantly false. I mean, they're a logical conclusion to draw given current levels of technology and intelligence, but so was Aether.

Which ones might these be?

[Don Julio Anejo]

Homeopathic ER video! link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0)

Look. They're trying to make money. Many of the greatest evils of humanity have been done in the name of greed. So, yeah, I don't buy that they're innocent, especially not if they're actually motivated by the profit they're turning in stated and lived ethos. The ones who are good enough not to seem slimy, yeah, they may just be deluded, but they generally aren't at the forefront to cash in on it properly anyway. Anyone looking to make money off of the suffering of their fellows is going to be usually evil, especially if it's by giving them something that five minutes of reading will show to be bunk. Y'know, like how goblinoids are usually evil.
To be fair, many regular doctors are just as greedy, convincing people to undergo redundant, useless or unjustified treatments (getting people to replace amalgam fillings by convincing them they're poisonous because of mercury), overkill on tests ("you know, you don't NEED an MRI for your aching muscle, but it doesn't hurt to be safe"), or what's perhaps worst, refusing treatment for an easily diagnosed and cured problem so it becomes worse and significantly more expensive to fix (something I suspect the doctor from when I was 10 doing to me).

And many alternative medicine practitioners are genuinely good and helping people. Sure, some may be deluding themselves, but quite often traditional medical treatment may actually be harmful (antibiotic placebos) and the genuine care and compassion is in many cases better than a guy with a stethoscope giving you a pill. Also, for many other things, some herbal remedies do work because they do contain an active ingredient. The problem with this is that plant roots/extracts/whatever also contain many other ingredients, which may interfere with a lot of complex drugs with complex mechanisms of action (neuromodulators such as antidepressants are particularly susceptible to this) and be very, very harmful.

If you're doing herbal remedies (NOT homeopathy, I'm talking about ones with an actual active ingredient, don't remember the name), they key is to not use them for anything remotely serious (headache? Sure, doesn't matter where you get your anaelgesic from. Cancer? Don't think so.) and not mix them with any real drugs.