Category: General Interest

Items of general interest – for mass consumption

What’s the harm in homeopathy?

whatstheharm.net is a website that is collecting together information on the harm caused by various non-scientific or pseudo-scientific disciplines like alternative medicine (e.g. homeopathy), paranormal phenomena (e.g. astral projections) etc. This is essentially an answer to the standard question – “Even if you don’t believe in it, what’s the harm in trying it out?” For example, here are the first two entries from their homeopathy page:

Jacqueline Alderslade

Age: 55
Hollymount, County Mayo, Ireland

Died (asthma attack)
July 2001
A homeopath told her to give up her asthma medication. She later died of an asthma attack.
Lorie Atikian

Age: 17 months
Ontario, Canada

Died (malnutrition, pneumonia)
September 25, 1987
Lorie’s parents, concerned about modern food additives, were advised to give her an organic vegetarian diet. She was also treated with herbal & homeopathic remedies and an energy machine. Her parents were convicted of neglect.

To be fair, I haven’t really looked at this website with a critical eye, and it is quite possible (likely?) that it errs in the opposite direction – by over-representing the problems. But then again, fairness and accuracy have never been my strong points.

Which is worse: A dog or an SUV?

Arnold Kling asks this thought-provoking question:

Which do you think takes a bigger toll on the environment, owning a dog, or owning an SUV? My bet would be on the dog. I’m thinking of all of the resources that go into dog food.

You could argue that children also consume a lot of resources, but that is different. A dog does not have the potential to discover a cure for cancer. A dog is not going to provide for you in your old age.

I personally have nothing against dogs. But it does seem to me that environmentalism inevitably points toward a policy of extermination of pet dogs. Unless environmentalism is simply hatred of industry.

Note: I am not arguing for or against this position. Just wanted to point out that this is something that most people wouldn’t have thought of this. Had you thought about the fact that somebody with no children (and does terrible, terrible things to the environment) is much more environment friendly that someone who is very “green” but has children?

(I found the article via the Cafe Hayek blog.)