Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2013 June 11

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June 11

Does anyone provide solutions on solutions?

After reading up a bit on vodka sauce where ethanol is used, for lack of a better terms, in a Liquid–liquid extraction, I started to wonder about some of the other things I'm cooking with. Obviously non-polar compounds will be extracted by cooking in oil or fats in general, but the ethanol is a polar solvent that mixes well with water. This got me thinking about chemistry in general, and for purposes of enhancing or avoiding certain flavors (e.g. right now I'm making saltless tomato sauce that's coming out way too fruity) I'm wondering about timing of addition things like vinegar that change the pH and other chemical changes that would affect the extraction of flavors from onions/garlic/tomatoes/kumquats/etc... Is there a reference anywhere that answers some of these questions about flavor extractions in various food-grade solvents? 71.231.186.92 (talk) 01:39, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

The chemistry is sufficiently complex that making reliable predictions is difficult. Given the relatively low cost of a trial-and-error approach, I'd recommend that. I've come up with several recipes that way. Incidentally, regarding a salt-free tomato sauce, have you tried adding some capsaicin (hot peppers) ? StuRat (talk) 02:20, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

The most likely source is Nathan Myrhvold's Modernist Cuisine. But it ain't cheap. Looie496 (talk) 04:41, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I believe these topics are addressed in On Food and Cooking, which generally has a nice balance of chemistry, history, and culinary lore. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:26, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Our Molecular gastronomy article also cites several useful sources. Roger (Dodger67) (talk) 07:23, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Is that cold or just the feeling of cold that brings thermogenesis ?

I have learned that the feeling of cold and heat is produced by the activation of certain peripheral "temperature" receptors. the question is. if a person got a knockout for the genes for these receptors and he feels neither cold or heat, and sometimes in his life, dives in an arctic water lake (for example), will this person have thermogenesis while in water?. my intuition says he won't have because there will be no signal to start all of this metabolic state. (i just haven't learned yet if a man could survive birth without temperature receptors). i am eager for your answers ! thanks Ben-Natan (talk) 02:54, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

As our article on thermoregulation states (very briefly), thermogenesis is driven by a small brain area called the preoptic nucleus of the hypothalamus, which contains cells that are exquisitely sensitive to core temperature. That area also receives input from temperature sensors on the body surface, but core temperature is much more important. So a knockout of skin sensors probably wouldn't greatly impact thermoregulation. No doubt there are other kinds of knockout that do, but I don't know anything about them. As far as I can tell, the molecular mechanism of thermosensation in the hypothalamus has not yet been established. Looie496 (talk) 03:21, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Sensation of cold is mediated by TRPM8, and heat TRPV3 (there are others for each, though). The OMIM entry for TRPM8 doesn't mention body temperature changes, [1] and the OMIM entries for body temperature are other genes. [2] Logically there is just too much disconnect between when you feel cold (just rushed outside, say) and when you actually have a low body temperature; there needs to be some space between these mechanisms. Wnt (talk) 03:34, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Ways to turn a hurricane?

Could any of these things possibly turn a hurricane? (Weather modification gives a good overview of some ideas to stop one, but from the narrow U.S. context, it is not actually necessary - in many cases it would be desirable simply to give the storm a shove somehow to make it turn a hundred miles sooner toward the northeast)

• Do cloud seeding in winds leading toward one side of the hurricane to make them drop some rain in advance. Since the condensation of moisture provides heat, could this put an asymmetric force on the storm?
• Release some kind of thickening agent into the storm with drones to increase the viscosity of the water and change the droplet size, and so hopefully the rate at which the water condenses, with the same effect?
• Fire lightning rockets up through one part of the hurricane to change the charge distribution with the notion of altering how minute droplets of water repel one another due to charge on them, with the same effect?
• Anchor some sort of kites designed to create turbulent air flow (I'm thinking a density very roughly around 1 per acre) with the notion that under some specific condition as the wind rises, the turbulence will propagate from each kite over a long distance, changing the amount of resistance the wind experiences against the sea? (No, I haven't modelled this in a wind tunnel! my subjective recollection is that there are specific circumstances for some objects where a little protrusion on a model can leave a long trail of disruption behind it, but I could be so wrong about this optimistic scenario ;) ...)
• Put some sort of biodegradable oil on the water (as the article mentions) but not at the center of the storm, rather at its distant extreme to change the wind resistance (can oil do that?)

Last but not least, does anyone ever actually go out and try to fool with a hurricane's path, with any technology of any kind? Wnt (talk) 05:50, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Check this out. --Jayron32 06:06, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Have you looked at the article on tropical cyclone track forecasting? The factors that are used to forecast a storm track are basically the things you would have to change in order to alter one. The most important ones are probably uncontrollable, but you might conceivably be able to exploit the Fujiwhara effect or something. Looie496 (talk) 06:12, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

There is some kind of gel which absorbs many times it's own weight in water, and the drops then dissolve in saltwater. A fleet of cargo planes working non-stop could conceivably drop enough of it into a hurricane to affect it. This would cost millions of dollars, but could possibly save billions in damage. Another option is to prevent the water from getting hot enough to spawn hurricanes, by placing reflective floating surfaces on it. Not sure if this would be practical, though, and there's the environmental impact when all this material eventually washes up on shores. StuRat (talk) 06:40, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

. --Jayron32 13:40, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

[3]. That says it only absorbs 20X the weight of the gel, but that seems much lower than I recall. Even a sponge absorbs that much, right ? StuRat (talk) 15:47, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

FYI: The water contained within a hurricane weighs about 240 million tons [4]. So if your gel absorbs 20x it's own weight, you're going to need 12 Million tons of gel (assuming you don't waste any by dumping too much of it in one place or missing the target or whatever). A Lockheed Martin C-130J transport plane can carry about 22 tons (See this). So we're going to need around a half million air transport missions to mop up the entire hurricane. The C-130 costs around $10,000 per hour to fly[5]...let's suppose it's a 4 hour mission - then the cost of doing this is about 20 billion dollars...plus the cost of the gel. That's actually cost-effective for Katrina-scale hurricanes that cost in the 100 billion dollar range - but not for a "typical" hurricane that does just a few billion in damage. It's plausible on cost benefits - but definitely not a slam-dunk.

But the problem is that we don't have a half a million aircraft - the US owns about 200 of these large cargo planes (See this) - and that would mean doing 2,500 flights each - if they take 4 hours plus an hour turn-around time, then it would take close to two years of non-stop work with the entire US airforce, navy and army C130 fleets to soak up just one hurricane! To put a stop to all of the atlantic hurricanes would require every man, woman and child in the US to become a C130 crewmember or support person! (Not to mention the gel-manufacturing nightmare!)

Obviously you wouldn't need to soak up the entire hurricane to put a stop to it - but even if you only had to soak up 10% of it - it's still wildly impractical.

Summary: Silly idea! Won't work. SteveBaker (talk) 16:46, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

As I said, I think it's much more than 20 times. Also, if you can attack the hurricane during formation, say by wiping out the eye wall whenever it tries to form, you might be able to keep it from organizing and keep it as only a tropical depression, with much less of an effort. And, yes, if we decided to do this, we'd need to build a large fleet of planes just for this purpose. Due to global warming, and the expectation of more devastating hurricanes, such an option may be more practical as time goes by. This might also be a good application of unmanned airplanes, as taking off, flying to a specific target, dropping the load, and then returning to base isn't beyond the capabilities of modern technology. If we mass produced such planes, hopefully the cost per hour to run them would go down dramatically. StuRat (talk) 04:48, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

The large practical problem here is that hurricane prediction is not an exact science. Your efforts to divert the hurricane would be far from exact too. Now, consider what happens if you divert a hurricane and cause it to hit a major city instead of missing it - 1800 people die and 100 billion dollars go down the toilet and it's all your fault! As with anything like this where you try to use a small force to create a large change, you have to apply that force as early as you can...but the problem is that's when storm prediction is least able to predict the path accurately. Even just three or four days before landfall, the best math models we have were predicting that Katrina would hit the Florida panhandle. So clearly, attempting to change the path even just a few days before landfall is as likely to cause a problem as to solve one. Leaving it until you're certain that you won't make matters worse is leaving it too late to have a measurable effect. Improving prediction times is tremendously difficult - even in principle - because the system is highly chaotic (in the chaos theory sense). SteveBaker (talk) 17:05, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

There's no harm thinking big, but practicality tends to intervene. Will Rogers posed what he claimed to be a great solution to the German U-Boat problem in WWI: "Boil the ocean!" Leaving the details up to the experts, of course. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 21:01, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

For what it's worth - in the last few years, there have been several special sessions at American Geophysical Union's annual meeting on the topic of geoengineering - that is, the task of working out the practical engineering considerations for earth-scale projects to intentionally affect climate and weather. It's already well-established that human activity does affect weather and climate. So, the task going forward is to design and engineer human activity to affect weather and climate in a controlled way. Serious scientists are expending serious thought on this issue - but it's still far from reality in the short term. Here's AGU's official position statement on geoengineering: Geoengineering the Climate System (2009). Excerpts: "proactive strategies could reduce the risks of climate change... (including) geoengineering: deliberately manipulating physical, chemical, or biological aspects of the Earth system"... Nimur (talk) 22:57, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm - good detective work - thanks! Clearly this is nonsense. It can't possibly work...on cost grounds, on practicality grounds, on risk of doing more harm than good grounds...there are a million reasons why you can't do that.

The work by the American Geophysical Union isn't about attacking a single hurricane - it's about changing our society in ways that'll reduce our impact on global climate change - and some "Plan B" approaches to applying a bandaid to the problem if (as seems likely) we fail to do that. Things like injecting water vapor into the upper atmosphere to increase our planet's albedo. These are horribly dangerous things to consider doing - and it's unlikely that we could get international agreement to do that. But dialling down the surface temperature of the mid-atlantic ocean would reduce the amount of energy available for hurricane formation - which in turn would reduce the number and severity of hurricanes. Sure - that'll work - but it's not specifically a "fix" for hurricanes - it's a side-effect of a more general effort to engineer our impact on the planet. SteveBaker (talk) 13:55, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I've tried to hold off responding because I've observed the OP editing a question is the kiss of death for getting more answers (hope this will be an exception!), but I should note that our article weather modification specifically mentions Dyn-O-Gel, claiming 1500x absorption, and if people are confident to debunk this at this point, please do. Myself, above, I didn't actually want to absorb the water, just change how droplets accrete or coalesce in some measurable way to affect how much heat of fusion enters a part of the storm; admittedly I doubt you can do that but I just don't know for sure. Of course, I admit that turning a hurricane in the Caribbean would be pretty useless - I'm thinking of the east coast U.S. in particular, where hurricanes often turn away and if they do they harm nobody but perhaps a few fishermen off Newfoundland. Wnt (talk) 16:11, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

...which is an excellent example showing that while some Wikipedia articles are excellent, some are crap. The reference cited in the article for Dyn-O-Gell is is a broken link. However the article is available on a paranormal/ghosts website at http://tech.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/ParanormalGhostSociety/message/30659?var=1. Read it - you'll see it's rubbish. If that's not enough, it says the gell is made by the Dyn-O-Mat company. There is a domain name, dynomat.com registered but is inactive, and I could not find any evidence that the company exists. Note that Dynamat is a legit active company selling sound absorbent materials for automotive use. The History page for the Wikipedia article shaows that the Dyn-O-Gell bit was added on 7 April 2007 by editor Beland, apparently based on the paranormal/ghosts website (hard to tell for sure as the link Beland provided is not valid). The story was therein attributed to the Scripps Howard news service. You can search for old news reports on their website. There is no such story held by them. The story is just a load of rot, as I said before.

I just looked at this quickly and "Dyn-O-Storm" pulled up Discover Magazine saying the stuff is a polyacrylic acid derivative (sodium polyacrylate?) (I went off half-cocked a minute ago about polyacrylamide, but that's not the precise compound here) Wnt (talk) 06:28, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I should say I like StuRat's notion of the floating mirror - in theory, if you had just the right material, you could spray a layer of highly reflective material that is just a few atoms thick, like a solar sail or something - I'd think you could do it with nanotech, but I bet some simpler but smarter engineering could make it able to self-organize and reorganize due to chemical properties, yet be ultimately biodegradable. It would be nice if it made use of iron so you could fertilize the ocean with the same intervention, thereby taking on the issue both long-term and short-term. :) Wnt (talk) 16:11, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Dyn-O-Gel has been dismissed by the NOAA as ineffective. See the updated article for link. 86.121.18.17 (talk) 23:28, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

This looks persuasive [6] - nonetheless, I have to note it sounds like the simulation addressed only overall wind speed. Perhaps my naive assumption that it should be easier to nudge a hurricane than disrupt it is actually wrong though, and that's why they didn't test it? Wnt (talk) 03:18, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that 2000-to-1 ratio is closer to what I remember. One thing this study doesn't address, though, is that they are only looking at a fully developed hurricane. I'd think it would be far more efficient to attack it when first forming. Of course, to do this, we need better prediction models so we know which tropical storms will develop into deadly hurricanes, so we can concentrate on just those. StuRat (talk) 20:33, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Chemistry and relativistic effects

I often hear the concept thrown into speculation in research reports, but have no idea what it actually means in a particular context. Here is an example: Unlike the lighter congeners, zinc(II), and cadmium(II) hydride, solid mercury(II) hydride is a molecular solid instead of a network solid. Apparently, it comes down to relativistic effects. What are those effects in this context, and how do those effects affect? Plasmic Physics (talk) 11:03, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Electrons are not going to travel faster than the speed of light in an atom. For high charged nuclei the electrons will be travelling very fast near the nucleus, and would have greater effect for D or F orbitals. However this effect also can modify hydrogen atom spectra, causing splits in lines from higher shells. The result for the heavy elements is that they are softer and melt cooler. One effect is that the electrons are effectively heavier, and then moving slower, and reduce the Bohr radius, so densities are higher. Read Relativistic quantum chemistry for the article on this here. This explains that the 6S orbital in mercury is shrunken so that its bonds are weak. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:18, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

OK, thanks. Can you also please explain why mercury(I) chloride is Hg
₂Cl
₂, whereas mercury(I) hydride is just HgH? Plasmic Physics (talk) 14:06, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

You wrote that HgH was stable up to about 6K in matrix isolation. This gives a clue that the bond is extremely weak. Stable in isolation means that two molecules react with themselves. You can guess that the Hg₂H₂ is even more unstable and breaks apart to H₂ and Hg. Even if this Hg₂H₂ was stable enough in isolation it would be extra hard to make it in isolation as you need to get 4 atoms together in one place without extra reactive atoms. The bond in H₂ is much stronger than in HgH. What is your reference for dihydrido-1κH,2κH-dimercury existing? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:20, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

It's from the same paper by Andrews, and in a 2005 paper by Alireza Shayesteh (I think). From what I remember, the calculated enthalpy of formation for Hg
₂H
₂ for higher than for HgH, coupled with a low activation energy for the conversion to individual HgH. I don't remember about the energetics for total decomposition of Hg
₂H
₂ to the elements. It requires only a quarter of the energy to break the second bond of HgH
₂, than it does the first, and the first requires approximately two fifths of the energy to break on H-H bond. Plasmic Physics (talk) 22:30, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Dissociation and eutectics

What is the eutectic point of a NO₂/N₂O₄ mixture? Is it even possible to liquefy such a mixture fast enough, before equilibrium is restored? Plasmic Physics (talk) 11:18, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

A related question: is it in theory possible to speed heat octosulfur to estimate it's boiling point? That is, heating it fast enough such that decomposition does not have significant blurring effect. Plasmic Physics (talk) 14:10, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

What if you heated octasulfur at a reduced pressure? That's pretty common for lots of things that can't be boiled at atmospheric pressure (because it's just too high-T to be convenient or because it thermally decomposes), either for measuring/reporting bp or simply for purification. There are heuristics for converting to other pressures, or it can simply be reported at whatever mmHg was used. DMacks (talk) 18:04, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

I suppose I could, but my question is concerned specifically with standard pressure. Monitoring the temperature differential of the substance over time, and looking for a step in such a plot. Plasmic Physics (talk) 23:08, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Air oxidation of Ammonium iron(II) sulfate

Quoted from Ammonium iron(II) sulfate

In analytical chemistry, this salt is preferred over other salts of ferrous sulphate for titration purposes as it is much less prone to oxidation by air to iron(III). The oxidation of solutions of iron(II) is very pH dependent, occurring much more readily at low pH. The ammonium ions make solutions of Mohr's salt slightly acidic, which slows this oxidation process. [1]

So oxidation occurs readily at low pH. Ammonium ions make it acidic reducing the pH, which should make the oxidation happen much more readily. So how come is it slowing down? This is a contradiction.

What's correct?

--Gauravjuvekar (talk) 16:25, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

EDIT: Ammonium iron(III) sulfate says that it's abbrevated to FAS. Is FAS really Ammonium iron(III) sulfate(ferric) or ammonium iron(II) sulfate(ferrous)

--Gauravjuvekar (talk) 16:57, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Low pH slows oxidation, so I have changed the article. Sulfuric acid is often added to solutions to stop them oxidising. Looking around for FAS it is used for Ammonium iron(II) sulfate more than for the ferric ammonium sulfate. [7] (232 hits) and [8] (54 hits). I would suggest that you don't use FAS alone as an abbreviation for this! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:57, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Voltmeter and ammeter

Why do we combine voltmeter in parallel combination and ammeter in series combination? 106.209.208.31 (talk) 16:34, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

To answer simply: voltage is the same across parallel elements, but current is the same through elements in series. And vice versa: voltage differs across elements in series (except in the case when the impedances are identical) and current differs through parallel elements (except in the case when the impedances are identical). So if you connected the meter the wrong way, you wouldn't be measuring the thing you want to measure (not to mention any possible danger to your equipment and self)! You can make a deeper answer with regard to Maxwell's equations, but I assume you don't want that (not that I could give such an answer anyway). --Atethnekos (Discussion, Contributions) 16:58, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

Another way of thinking about it is to ask "what is voltage" and "what is current"? Voltage is a difference between two points, so you put your two meter probes on those two points to compare them. Current is flow, so you put your meter so that the electricity flows through it to measure that rate. DMacks (talk) 18:00, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

The hydraulic analogy is always useful in these cases. Voltage is like pressure in a system of water pipes - current is like the flow rate. If you need to measure pressure between two points you need to place your pressure gauge between those two points (although one point might be the ambient air pressure) - but for flow rate, you need to insert the flow meter into the pipe to measure how much water flows through it every second. SteveBaker (talk) 19:18, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Voltmeters have very large internal resistances (so they must operate to full-scale deflection with very small currents). If we place a voltmeter in series with the electromotive force, the resistance of the voltmeter would only allow a very small current to flow and the circuit would most likely not operate as intended. So voltmeters are usually placed in parallel with a major circuit element, the one whose voltage we want to monitor. Ammeters have very low internal resistances. If we place an ammeter in parallel with a major circuit element, most of the current supplied by the electromotive force will flow through the ammeter rather than the major circuit element, so the major circuit element won't operate as intended. We usually want to monitor the magnitude of the current flowing through the major circuit element, not interfere with that current, so we connect the ammeter in series with it. See also Kirchhoff's circuit laws. Dolphin (t) 08:17, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Are vaccines homeopathic?

I mean mainstream vaccines and in the sense that you are using the same (homeo) substance as the illness (pathic). OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:58, 11 June 2013 (UTC)

No. Homeopathy is quackery designed to bilk money out of gullible people. Vaccines are proven to work. Big difference. Of course, if you read both articles, you'd already know that. If you're trying to work from the word "homeopathy" to make some connection, you'll also want to read etymological fallacy which explains nicely where you're going wrong there as well. --Jayron32 00:03, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I do not dispute that what we buy as homeopathic is quackery or that vaccines work. But ignoring the etymological connection, and starting with the idea of "using the same substance as the illness to treat the illness", what's wrong with saying that it works, but only preventively, like a vaccine. OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:11, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Homoeopathy doesn't use 'the same substance' - it uses water. Any 'substance' is diluted to the extent that you are highly unlikely to get a single molecule of it in the 'remedy' AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:23, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Because the comparison is contrived and misleading. Vaccines have nothing to do with homeopathy whatsoever. The error you are making is a category error with the help of an eqivocating over-simplification. Saying that vaccines and homeopathy are similar because they "use the same substance as the illness to treat the illness" is like saying the planet Mars is like Stalin because they are both "red". Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 00:28, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

It's slightly completely opposite in approach and intent. To oversimplify each, one tries to induce a very mild case of the disease to prime the body to strongly fight the real one in the future. The other uses an unrelated agent that induces similar symptoms as a disease does to cure the disease in someone who is already sick. The commonality--"agent that can cause the symptoms"--is, as Dominus Vobisdu says, doesn't make them intrinsically related in any other way. DMacks (talk) 00:58, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Also, the dilutions involved in homeopathy are such that not one single molecule of the "active ingredient" is actually present in the "treatment". That's emphatically not the case for a vaccine. You may get millions of weakened or killed viruses in a flu vaccine shot but not one single molecule of raw duck liver (yes, really!) in a homeopathic flu "treatment". Homeopathists would not regard a flu vaccination as a homeopathic dose. Conflating these two approaches can only lead to "Very Bad Things" happening! SteveBaker (talk) 13:42, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

The problem here is that "homeopathy" refers to two different things: the deceptive practices of Hahnemann and his ilk, and the much older vague principle of "similia similibus curantur" held by Paracelsus and other medieval physicians. [9] The concept of homeopathy as one of the ancient philosophies of medicine is legitimate though highly unreliable (as the Lancet mentions with the business of treating wounds with boiling oil). Vaccination can fairly be seen as an extension of that principle. Heuristically, it may still be a valid source of blue-sky inspiration, though I should emphasize that in biology there are no two things more similar than something's synonym and its antonym, and so homeopathy and allopathy, in the philosophical sense, are very closely related. (I know that is hard to wrap your head around, but by and large, to inhibit a biological process you need something that is almost but not quite the same as something that activates it!)

To comment on the social context, medicine is a racket but it has many mostly honest practitioners: the regulatory privileges held by its schools make them extremely valuable economically. Some, like allopaths, have managed to hold onto a high reputation, others, like osteopaths, seem to have a harder time holding on - and then there are the homeopaths, who have the same legal monopoly of "prescription" over their formulae of highly diluted water as the more common physicians hold over drugs that are actually needed. It is not impossible that one of the other schools could have been infiltrated and debased in the same way, but allopathy, with its tendency to provide quick obvious relief of symptoms, would have been harder to replace with water. Wnt (talk) 15:55, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

It should be noted that Wnt holds an idiosyncratic and unsupported view of mainstream medicine, and his unreferenced opinions should be taken with the largest grain of salt you can muster. --Jayron32 17:18, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

http://giantcrystals.strahlen.org/europe/merkers3.jpg

• Vaccination works for reasons that are easily understood, verified, tested and reproducible. Repeated, detailed studies show that most vaccines work very well in reducing the chance of their targetted disease occurring. Homeopathy (in all modern senses of the word) doesn't actually work at all (there is not one scientific study that demonstrates anything more than a placebo effect), and the means by which it's claimed to work are vague, contradicted by different practitioners and entirely unscientific.
• Allopathy also works fairly well in most cases - and usually (but not always) we understand why it works - and we're always careful to test it and measure things like side-effects. If you have a severe anaphylaxis attack, a shot of epinephrine will likely fix you right up. That's not a coincidence or a piece of luck - it's because we know that epinephrine is a vasoconstrictor. All of this is demonstrable in a scientific fashion - from the cause, to the cure to the reasons the cure works, the possible side-effects, the future prognosis, etc.
• All that the homeopathists can say is something about water being imprinted with the memory of something you added to it and then diluted to nothingness...they don't say why it works, they don't test to see if it actually does work, the whole thing is entirely made up of guesswork from people who are largely without any science training whatever.
• Osteopathy falls somewhere between the two. There have been a few studies that seem to show that it works better than placebo - but it's very hard to come up with a convincing placebo to compare it to - so that's a somewhat dubious claim - and there is little scientific explanation for how it works (if indeed it actually does). Discussing osteopathy is tricky because the term means radically different things in different countries. In the USA an osteopath does similar training to a conventional doctor - but in other places they may be regulated entirely differently - or not regulated at all - so the resulting mess makes it unlikely that the osteopathic treatment you get in those places is going to be any use anyway.

SteveBaker (talk) 19:10, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I basically agree with all that, but I don't think any of it contradicts Wnt's assertion that "medicine is a racket but it has many mostly honest practitioners". It's a racket with a solid scientific basis, yes, but that doesn't keep it from being a conspiracy in restraint of trade, which indeed it is, and in that sense it's a "racket". --Trovatore (talk) 21:38, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Is there a solid scientific basis for having prescription homeopathic medicines, which cannot legally be dispensed by ordinary people? Once you answer that: is there a solid scientific basis for having prescription regular medicines? For example, suppose that someone has high blood pressure and takes a drug daily to keep the dose low. He doesn't have money for a doctor that month, and by policy he can only receive so many refills for any medicine. Has someone done a scientific study that shows that it is safer for him to go off the high blood pressure medicine cold turkey than to be allowed to purchase a refill at his own risk based on his own personal decision making? Would an IRB even say it was ethical to conduct such a study? No. Profit comes first, and it really is that simple. Wnt (talk) 21:51, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I meant there is a scientific basis for the treatments, not for the public policy. --Trovatore (talk) 22:21, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

@Wnt: There is no reason to have prescription-only homeopathic treatments. They are either water, alcohol and water, sugar pills or other placebo-like substances. Since they have no effect whatever on the body (which is why they don't work), you can't overdose on them - so they don't need to be prescription-only - and as far as I know they aren't. On the other hand most prescription medicines have potentially dangerous side-effects and have to be administered in carefully considered dosages (eg, the safe dosage may depend on your body weight, gender, age or life-style - it may be necessary to limit the duration of treatment to avoid addiction - or to encourage completion of a course of drugs in order to avoid drug-resistant diseases - or to avoid drug interactions). For those reasons, it's considered necessary to involve an expert (a doctor, for example) who can determine whether the risks and consequences of the side effects exceed the risk of not treating the condition - and who can determine an appropriate dosage. Limiting the ability to purchase such substances is considered a matter of public safety.

The issue of funding of conventional medicine is an entirely political/financial matter - not a matter on which science can reasonably rule. Your comment presumably comes from the perspective of a person living under a political system that values low taxation over universal health care. If you lived (for example) in Brunei (health-care costs a flat rate of about 80 US cents per consultation with no additional charges for drugs, hospitalization, surgery, etc) - your perspective on the nature of conventional medicine would undoubtedly be different. SteveBaker (talk) 02:45, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I don't think the point is about funding. The point is about monopolistic practices. --Trovatore (talk) 04:04, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

What monopolistic practices? There are dozens of doctors and at least a couple of hospitals to choose from in every modern town or city - and once a drug comes out of patent protection, there are usually multiple manufacturers who compete on price to provide generics - there are even competing stores selling those drugs, who also compete vigorously on price. Sure, the drug company has a monopoly on the drug initially - but that's an issue of patent law, not the way that medicine works. You could certainly patent a homeopathic treatment if it actually worked - the manufacturers don't because patent battles between them would rapidly reveal that they're selling you bottles of water for $14 a pop - and bottles of water are not patentable. Besides, cutting the requirement to have a prescription out of the system wouldn't result in any more choice than you have now. SteveBaker (talk) 13:17, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

The AMA controls licensing and thereby restricts the supply of practitioners. Over the years, they have gotten rid of the general practitioner position (who didn't have to do a residency), and as I understand it are moving to restrict the supply of new nurse practitioners (allowed to prescribe) by making them get a doctorate. Obviously these measures reduce downwards pressure on pricing that the market would otherwise supply, especially if there were some sort of price transparency, and if tax incentives were not such that most routine medical care is provided through insurance (not what insurance is for!) so that the customer doesn't usually even know what the price is.

You may think that the measures that restrict supply also elevate quality, and who knows, perhaps they do. In a normal market situation, consumers are allowed to weigh such a purported benefit against the cost. --Trovatore (talk) 16:39, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

In a very limited sense, there are widely reported monopolistic-shenanigans by drug companies, up to and including use of the patent system to extend government patent protection (which is a form of endorsed monopoly that has its benefits to a point, so I'm not condemning the entire system),[10], [11], shady or too-cozy relationships with those that will prescribe the medication (over cheaper and often more effective medications), etc.[12] and [13], [14]. This sort of stuff isn't the tin-foil-hat crazy conspiracy stuff that Wnt seems to be on about when he condemns all doctors, and it shows up in mainstream media and well-respected scholarly studies all over the place. That being said, it is important to place the problems in the pharmaceutical industry into context, and it is still not reasonable to extend the well-documented shenanigans there with condemning doctors, nurses, midwives, PAs, and other front-line medical professionals who provide important, effective, and necessary care to the ailing. Doctors by-and-large are doing excellent work, and objections to the entire medical industry based on how some Big Pharma companies behave is unfounded. --Jayron32 13:56, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Tinfoil hat conspiracy theory? I'm so relieved to hear that pharmacies really will refill a high blood pressure medicine prescription as a matter of compassion or respect if the person being treated can't afford to make a mandatory visit to the doctor two or three times a year - I must have been reading some of those wild internet conspiracy sites to think otherwise. Doubtless the marketing strategy for Oxycontin, the monopolization of Colcrys, the fads for hysterectomies and tonsillectomies and wisdom tooth extraction, and indeed, the marketing budget of pharmaceutical companies (and thus pretty near their entire budget) are all popular delusions without basis in fact. If not, do tell me what conspiracy theory you have in mind that I should recant? Wnt (talk) 16:26, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

I understand your frustration - but it's not a problem that's inherent to allopathy - it's simply a function of the cost of healthcare where you happen to live. That's a political/economic matter - not a medical one.

Pharmacies won't refill a prescription because the law doesn't allow them to - it's not a lack of compassion.

In your example, high blood pressure medications of all kinds can be quite dangerous. Just look at the most common hypertension treatments and their contraindications: Thiazide#Contraindications or ACE_inhibitor#Contraindications_and_precautions, Beta_blocker#Adverse_effects, Calcium_channel_blocker#Toxicity, Angiotensin_II_receptor_antagonist#Adverse_effects and so forth. Not one of the available treatments for hypertension is without side effects and absolutely all of them have rather detailed contraindications that entail understanding other conditions that the patient may have developed since starting the course of treatment and other drugs that they might be taking. It does make sense to require periodic checkups before continuing with the same treatment. If someone were allowed (for example) to buy their own Thiazide (a diuretic that's often prescribed for hypertension) - then they might well continue to take it long after they need it - and after starting to develop some other condition such as diabetes - or after giving birth to a child who would suffer greatly from the Thiazide getting into breast milk. It takes a trained professional to re-examine the patient sufficiently frequently to be sure that this drug (which is really very cheap and quite effective) is still safe and necessary for this particular patient. Look at Angiotensins - they have a list of 13 known side-effects. Do you know them all - and which ones are sufficiently serious to require an alternative treatment or sufficiently mild that they are less serious than the hypertension that's being treated? How do you know whether the thiazine that's helping your blood pressure isn't causing hypokalemia or seriously worsening a case of diabetes that you didn't know you'd developed? It's essential that patients who are taking those drugs are examined for their side effects and removed from treatment when their condition is sufficiently alleviated - or switched to an alternative treatment when the one they have been taking becomes problematic. The idea that once a drug has been prescribed, it may be taken indefinitely without serious consequences is dangerous nonsense...and that's why the law requires a periodic re-examination in situations where a drug is not considered safe enough for over-the-counter sales. SteveBaker (talk) 13:45, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Sure, there are dangers; there are also dangers for a patient stopping cold turkey. What decides which dangers are the worry? The one that would cut into somebody's profits. I am actually quite confident that Wal-Mart could put together a set of pamphlets and a computer kiosk in a couple of months that could guide patients through all the side effects of those drugs with reliability not much different from the doctors, who never really monitor every possible risk anyway. (and that, if allowed, their pharmacy people could handle any blood collection for tests as readily as they handle a vaccine injection) Wnt (talk) 04:09, 15 June 2013 (UTC)

Words don't always have the same meaning as you would guess from the literally meaning of their roots.

In modern English, Homeopathy refers to a pretty specific (discredited) branch of medicine.

The underlying philosophy of Homeopathy and vaccines have the superficial similarity you mention, but I think in general vaccines are more closely analogous to the age-old concept of building up a resistance to poison, but even that shouldn't be taken as more than a loose metaphor.

(Sometimes "Homeopathy" is used (by advertisers) to mean all unproven herbal remedies, But that's not an accurate use of the word, and it has nothing to do with the word's roots.)APL (talk) 23:51, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Although this doesn't really answer the original question, I think it's worth at the very least noting that not all homeopathic remedies are completely devoid of the alleged active ingredient, or source of memory, or whatever you want to call it. Some homeopathic preparations are not diluted to the point that the ingredient no longer exists. Others, through a combination of insolubility/immiscibility of the active ingredient and stupidly designed means of dilution, still contain active ingredient when they should not. This does not change the fact that homeopathy still has literally no basis is any valid science.

But then back to the question, I'll agree with most of the above that the similarities are superficial. They both began with the assumption that sources of similar illness may treat or prevent the same. Even that similarity is fuzzy, since homeopathy was looking at any two things that caused similar symptoms, whereas vaccination is using an infectious agent to prevent disease from the exact same infectious agent (with the rare exception of things like cowpox/smallpox, where a reason to believe vaccination would work already existed). And that is where the similarities end, because development of a vaccine is always followed by rigorous scientific experiments to prove its validity and improve its application, whereas homeopathy functions purely as a means of separating fools from their money. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:17, 13 June 2013 (UTC)

Homeopathists don't even agree amongst themselves. I edited the Homeopathy article for a while - and practicing homeopathists would often come to the talk page to complain about how our article is so "biassed" against them(!). One of them told us that our article was failing to explain that higher dilution rates were reserved for treatments that had to target a very specific part of the body and lower dilution rates were used for treatments that affected the entire body. I tried to find a reference for that claim and found that while some homeopathists claim that, others claim the exact opposite and yet others claim that increasing the dilution just makes the treatment more powerful and made no claim of targeted treatment with higher dilutions. This is true throughout homeopathy - almost any statement that one of them might make is found to be contradicted by others. Because there is no scientific basis - or concerted efforts to test these ideas, there is nothing preventing homeopathists from making wildly divergent claims - and since many of the leading proponents make money by writing books - they can make more money by "discovering" new things about homeopathy and writing about them. This results in an ever increasing spiral of wilder and wilder claims as each person has to find something new to write about to keep the gravy train running. Since none of the claims produce any actual clinical results (beyond placebo at least) - then all claims are equally valid and there is no means to distinguish "correct" from "incorrect" statements.

It's pretty hilarious to question a committed homeopathist from a scientific perspective: "So you claim that dilution of some initial substance makes the treatment stronger. But even the best quality distilled water contains some contaminants - and no matter how careful you are during your preparation, there are guaranteed to be things like metal ions leaching into the water in the initial dilution stages. Don't those contaminants undergo yet more dilution and also gain potency?"...and..."How do you clean the containers that you use to do the dilution? Doesn't washing them out at the end just leave an even more potent treatment left in the container?"...it's like shooting fish in a barrel! They don't like answering questions like that. SteveBaker (talk) 13:17, 13 June 2013 (UTC)