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I think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability.
[Oscar Wilde]
« In which a vast body of human phenomena is explained | Main | Piling on Bill Donohue again »
Category: Pointless polls
Posted on: October 21, 2009 9:23 AM, by PZ Myers
I already sent you off to vote on this German poll that would have awarded homeopaths a prize…and you all did good, giving the good guys, SOZIALHELDEN (Social Heroes), a solid lead over the dangerous crackpots, Homöopathen ohne Grenzen (Homeopaths without borders).
Unfortunately, the poll didn't end then. It's been going on all this time, and the quacks have been creeping up, and are actually getting close to winning. So I must send you off again: go vote, or "Stimme abgeben"!
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PZ Myers 11.19.2009
PZ Myers 11.19.2009
Tim Lambert 11.12.2009
Ed Brayton 11.19.2009
Tim Lambert 11.18.2009
Comments
Posted by: drivenb4u
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October 21, 2009 9:31 AM
Another day another poll to crash!
Posted by: SEF
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October 21, 2009 9:38 AM
It's like sending off the winged monkeys: "fly, my pretties, fly!".
Meanwhile: it's not "ooml" but "ouml" you need to get the character entity you want, PZ.
Posted by: Bostonain | October 21, 2009 9:49 AM
If you're wondering what "Abgestimmt" means, it's probably because you already voted and the site has blacklisted your IP address.
I tried loading the site using Babelfish to translate it and voting on the translated site, but it didn't seem to work. (Either that or I just voted twice.)
Posted by: Bostonain | October 21, 2009 9:52 AM
... and I should add that since I've been looking this morning, both the real charity and the witch doctors have gained votes, so the situation is dire.
Posted by: Noam Zur | October 21, 2009 10:06 AM
Tried voting - but seeing how I already gave my vote for them in the past (seeing how I live in Germany, this is actually something more pressing for me than for all of you across the Atlantic, or even other EU states) the website didn't let me vote again. Guess my rational IP is blacklisted by the quacks.
Posted by: Ben | October 21, 2009 10:07 AM
Done and done! SOZIALHELDEN winning by about 600 now.
Posted by: Michelle R
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October 21, 2009 10:08 AM
I get the weird word, Abgestimmt.
I guess I can't vote another time.
Posted by: Ilya | October 21, 2009 10:16 AM
http://www.geben-gibt.de/online_voting.html
Hey, if you see Abgestimmt, it means they blacklisted your IP. However, you can past the link into translate.google.com and vote on the translated site - it'll fool their system.
Posted by: SirBedevere | October 21, 2009 10:28 AM
Speaking strictly from a hypothetical standpoint... those who can't vote because there's already a vote registered from their IP address (which, given dynamically-assigned IP addresses, could be from someone else) might need to pop down to the local wi-fi-equipped coffee shop with a laptop. (Which will only work as long as none of the other coffee shop customers has voted yet.)
Posted by: Thomas Winwood
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October 21, 2009 10:31 AM
Thanks for the tip, Ilya. Just double-voted; anything to ensure the idiotic doesn't get false credit for saving lives.
Posted by: Lynx
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October 21, 2009 10:35 AM
Thanks Ilya, worked like a charm. I'm assuming they can't blacklist google without sending their entire system to shit and beyond. Hopefully they don't decide to scrap the entire contest over this.
Posted by: Marion Delgado | October 21, 2009 10:36 AM
You will LOSE, O Man of Science!
I have printed out your blog post, ground it up, mixed with water 18 parts, decanted, mixed with water 13 parts, decanted, and given it to the organizers in cups of Yogi tea.
You are doomed!
Posted by: daveau
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October 21, 2009 10:39 AM
I don't know... There's a group that starts with "Hamburger" and it's very tempting.
--Wimpy
Posted by: MadDruid
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October 21, 2009 10:39 AM
I double voted again. I should be heading to the office later, so I may be able to get a few more votes in before the end of the day.
Posted by: Davianed
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October 21, 2009 10:41 AM
@ Marion #12:
I thought you were supposed to decant thrice, with a 11 part mix for the third one instead? Or does that distill the essence of evil inherent in PZ's post too much to help?
And not gonna lie - I giggled a lot at your post for some reason.
Posted by: Nebula99
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October 21, 2009 10:48 AM
It allows me to vote on the translated page, but I'm not sure it's counting the votes. Still, the gap between Sozialhelden and the homeopaths has gotten slowly wider as I've been checking (a gap of 745 votes to one of 847), so either my votes have been working along with a lot of other people's, or people with more computer use and ballot-box-stuffing skills than me are picking up the slack.
Also, re: blacklisting IPs: If you rely on a school or public library for your computer use, log on to a different one every time you go, and vote from each one. It's worked for me before with other polls, and in the previous round of Pharyngulating this one.
Posted by: Kane148
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October 21, 2009 10:50 AM
Yeah I was gonna say, this would be a good day to visit your local public (or school) library and hop on the computers there :)
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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October 21, 2009 10:55 AM
What good is a poll that even puts up charlatans as candidates for winning a prize for "public service"?
And how long is the wretched thing going? Just until some fraud wins?
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Strasbourg | October 21, 2009 11:00 AM
it looks like you can use all the languages on the
google translation page... : o
Posted by: Physicalist
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October 21, 2009 11:08 AM
You can vote for multiple projects, so it's worth voting up most everyone except the homeopaths.
Posted by: Joerg | October 21, 2009 11:19 AM
Let me add that you can vote for any number of projects, so vote for more than one.
Also, the poll will run to November 15th, but seemingly they will hide the counter from November 1st on...
Thanks for helping!
Posted by: Gunnar
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October 21, 2009 11:26 AM
To vote twice or even mor often, you need a new IP adress and have to delete the ccokies.
I have done this for myself several times
Posted by: charley | October 21, 2009 11:49 AM
Ich kann nicht. Er sagt: "Abgestimmt"
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 21, 2009 12:15 PM
Abgestimmt = voted = already voted.
Posted by: MikeM | October 21, 2009 12:21 PM
UCD has a new study out, in which it finds no link between mercury and autism:
http://www.sacbee.com/news/story/2264857.html
(Sorry for the O/T)
Posted by: GumbyPhobe | October 21, 2009 12:22 PM
You can vote as many times as you like without changing your IP - via Google-Translate . Simply paste the poll's URL into the
'translate' box. After casting your first vote, close the 'Ihre Stimme wurde gewertet.' message, return to the previous page and vote again until your fingers start bleeding.
Hopefully the Sozialhelden won't get disqualified for cheating, since in that case the prize might go to the homeopaths. (Which, I suppose, are cheating too - by nature. They must be working hard to dilute the poll...)
Posted by: X. Wolp | October 21, 2009 12:54 PM
I've been noticing them creeping up last week.
To counteract pharygulation they surely must have sent out their own pawns... disgusting.
AS somebody has pointed out on scienceblogs.de , this organization advocates treating HIV with homeopathy since it is so much more cheap (30 USD per year, I wonder how much normal water that would have bought)
Posted by: Didac
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October 21, 2009 12:55 PM
One of the things that bewilder me is that the same people who defend "homeopathy" against "allopathy" happen to be very often in the "antivaccinationist" camp. When, in a broad sense of the terme, vaccinations are a "homeopathic strategy" (fighting a disease with a "similar drug", i.e. a inactivated or attenuated pathogenic agent). To the degree of dilutions that "conventional" homeopathy works, allopathy would have the same effect: none.
Posted by: Phodopus
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October 21, 2009 12:57 PM
Just so you know what great organisation you are voting AGAINST,
here's my poor translation of half of their profile:
"
Homeopaths without borders pursue the goal of spreading classical Homeopathy in those countries in which it is hitherto unknown. In doing so, the organization wants to contribute to an improved medical care of a suffering population while creating meaningful jobs by specific training measures.
The organization exists since the 1997 "Mostar Project": The establishment of a homeopathic clinical practice in the destroyed city of Mostar in Bosnia-Herzegowina. For four years,
25 expericenced homeopaths took turns volunteering to treat traumatized victims of the war on a daily basis and for free. Approximately 20 nurses, pharmacists, doctors and laypeople
received training in homeopathy over the course of 2 years.
After about 10 years and several courses, and political work on location, homeopathy is now an established component of the medical system in Bosnia-Herzegovina, with about
100 practising homeopaths.
[...]"
Good grief, can we ever have a positive cultural impact on neighboring countries, please? At least, 100 practising homeopaths is nothing compared to what is going on in an average German city...
Posted by: Lynx
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October 21, 2009 1:57 PM
We've got (probably ineffective) competition:
http://www.hpathy.com/papersnew/schmukler-vote-for-homeopathy.asp
http://ja-jp.facebook.com/posted.php?id=36667509191&share_id=47989659963&comments=1
Of course, those were the only two links I could find and the rest were either Pharyngula or other blogs linking to pharyngula with their own call to action.
Still, better safe than sorry. We can't be complacent while the forces of mass dilution are on the march!
Posted by: rolak | October 21, 2009 1:58 PM
thanks for pushing this voting, it is yet a long way to Nov,15.
@Didac: They are natural antivaxxers, because in H-World there are no bacteria, virus etc, so a vaccinaction is of cause senseless in their view.
Posted by: Randomfactor | October 21, 2009 2:06 PM
PZ, you fool! The more you dilute their votes, the stronger they become!
Posted by: Etacol | October 21, 2009 2:17 PM
That HOG is on a poll that is supposed to recognize social projects is made even more revolting by the fact that the group actively encourages to substitute evidence-based medical AIDS treatments with homeopathic preparations, as can be seen on their Honduras project page.
Posted by: JTDC
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October 21, 2009 2:22 PM
Wait--that poll is still going on?
Posted by: Etacol | October 21, 2009 2:29 PM
It will go on till the 15th of November. Unfortunately, there is still quite some time left for those who treat hayfever with diluted cat hair to win.
Posted by: vom Minenfeld | October 21, 2009 3:10 PM
"abgestimmt" does not mean your IP has been blacklisted, just that you already voted for the organisation in question. This is recognised by a cookie geben-gibt.de saves on your computer...
@ daveau, you can actually vote for both, "Sozialhelden" and "Hamburger..." at the same time. Every organisation you vote for by clicking "Stimme abgeben" _before_ you take a look at the present results by clicking "Jetzt Ranking anzeigen" will gain one vote.
Posted by: Nebula99 | October 21, 2009 3:14 PM
So they'll keep it open till 11/15 but hide the counter after the first? Seems like we ought to keep posting alerts every week or two so we all remember to keep voting. After all, if we forget and the wooheads don't, they'll keep voting and catch up again. Fortunately, that's not happening right now: the gap is at 1683 and widening.
I'm still voting, but it keeps putting the Abgestimmt thing under a different charity, betapharm, whose vote # isn't going up the more I vote (Sozialhelden's is). I hope this means my votes are getting credited to Sozialhelden.
Posted by: Steven Mading
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October 21, 2009 3:56 PM
Homeopaths without borders?? What's the point of a traveling homeopath? Just pour your cures out into the ocean near where you live, wait a few weeks, and then ask your patients to drink from the nearest ocean where they live. Granted that will dilute your cure a lot, but hey that's a good thing, right?
Posted by: daveau
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October 21, 2009 4:02 PM
vom Minenfeld@36-
Thank you. I knew that, or at least worked it out from context. I have voted for both.
My post was a feeble joke referencing a Popeye the Sailor character.
Posted by: German Skeptics | October 21, 2009 4:04 PM
Friends, I'm very impressed ... Great work! Keep on voting! Although the ranking will disappear in a few days, the poll will go on to November 15.
Posted by: Hairhead
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October 21, 2009 5:20 PM
I have a specific personal reason to hate homeopaths.
For the last 10 years I have worked with a wonderful woman who has spent her whole life working with children who have learning disabilities. She has helped hundreds of children who had been given up on by the system to acquire learning skills and to succeed in education and in life.
Last year, her 78th year, still actively helping children (and adults, too), she was having to take a couple of blood-pressure drugs and blood-thinning drugs to keep her from having a stroke. She didn't like how they made her feel, so she consulted a homeopath, who advised her to go off the drugs and to take vitamins and other water-nostrums.
So what happened? Two separate strokes which put her in hospital for months, caused a fall in her home, where she nearly bled to death, memory loss, balance and fatigue problems, and so on. After nearly a year of therapy, and being back on the nasty ol' scientific drugs, she's feeling good enough to start work again, one client at a time.
But she is complaining because she doesn't have the money to purchase her beloved vials of diluted water!
She will not listen to reason. Because she "feels better" not taking the REAL drugs, she wants to go back to "water" -- even though that will leave her FEELING NOTHING -- BECAUSE SHE'LL BE DEAD!!
If I knew her homeopath's name, I'd go punch him in the face. (She knows how I feel about the whole thing.)
What a waste, what a waste, what a waste of a life, of a talent, of everything!
Posted by: Phodopus
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October 21, 2009 5:28 PM
@#32 Priceless :)
However, even if we should accomplish a 1D dilution which is
pretty weak, the results still have to be shaken in the right order to be effective, we almost can't loose...
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space
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October 21, 2009 5:32 PM
Alert: Lots and lots of spam going to the old, inactive threads.
Posted by: Sean | October 21, 2009 5:37 PM
There's another fun poll we can Pharyngulatize over at MSNBC:
Should "In God We Trust" be removed from money? It's 11% to 79% for the wrong direction right now.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10103521/
Posted by: Fitz | October 21, 2009 6:02 PM
Sean, that is an ex-poll. It has 18 million votes. What do you suggest we do?
Posted by: speedweasel
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October 21, 2009 6:05 PM
I like the idea but that would still be many orders of magnitude stronger than most homoeopathetic preparations. ie. You are likely to actually find molecules of 'blog post' in your solution.
The fact that homeopaths can state, with a straight face, that they use 'duck' at a molecular level is spectacularly ignorant and betrays this quackery's (pun intended) roots in antiquity. The idea reeks of essentialism and obviously pre-dates germ theory *and* atomic theory.
I'm stunned that this quaint, early approach at medicine has found a foothold in modern times.
Posted by: David Marjanović, OM | October 21, 2009 6:05 PM
Read the fine light-gray print, and weep in shame.
Every few months someone pastes this link and tells us to pharyngulate it. PZ himself has written a post complaining about this. It's got tens of millions of votes already. It's been freeped out the wazoo.
The purpose of pharyngulating polls – demonstrating that online polls are automatically worthless – has already been accomplished. There's nothing more for us to do.
Unless you want to program a bot that adds another hundred million votes over the next month.
Posted by: George | October 21, 2009 6:33 PM
"Gentlemen, Ladies" Clear your cookies.
Posted by: Jim | October 21, 2009 6:51 PM
I must be stupid because I couldn't find the poll the first time and again now. Where is it?
Posted by: Jim1138 | October 21, 2009 7:30 PM
SOZIALHELDEN e.V. 9342 Stimmen
Homöopathen ohne Grenzen e.V. 7236 Stimmen
Can't find the poll link?
Try: Yahoo Translation
Click on "Voice Deliver" to vote.
Social Heros the pic with people wearing red t-shirts translated to "SOCIAL HERO registered association, Raul herb living"
If the last line is "Co-ordinate now for your favorites from the Shortlist:", your browser is not showing everything.
Posted by: Petzl
|
October 21, 2009 8:05 PM
I dunno... "Sozialhelden"... its got "socialism" in it.
Better check with Glenn Beck first before doing anything.
He'll contact the hive mind and get foxnews-correct action.
Posted by: Nebula99 | October 21, 2009 8:38 PM
The margin is over 2k now.
Woo: 7244 Social Heroes: 9433
Excuse me while I get this out of my system:
IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAND!
Okay, done now. Keep Pharyngulating!
Posted by: Marylynne | October 21, 2009 9:34 PM
I go to a homeopathic physician (Disclaimer: acquired back in my days of woo. He is also an MD, never pushes the homeo, always offers Western medicine alternatives, is quick to refer to a specialist if outside his knowledge, and actually over the years I've noticed suggests HM less and less. He is a really good doctor and the woo never comes up anymore since I don't ask about it).
I was going over some medical issues about my daughter and discussed all the measures I had taken. We do use chiropractic for specific back issues (Hawing switched from a woo-y chiro to one with a more limited realistic practice). He said, "You can probably drop the chiropractic if you want - it's not been shown to be very effective."
HAW! The homeopathic physician says chiropractice is bogus! I thought that was really funny.
Posted by: speedweasel
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October 21, 2009 10:26 PM
Sorry to be a pedant but this bugs me. There is no such thing as Western Medicine. There is however science-based medicine that is safe and efficacious...
Posted by: Bride of Shrek OM
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October 21, 2009 10:50 PM
Marylynne
The sheer fact you are describing it as an "alternative" rather than the main suggests the priorities are a little off.
If he was a true man of science and ethical he'd drop the woo rubbish that he might not peddle on you but obviously has some sucker coughing up for.
.. and for dog's sake, go to a fucking PHYSIOTHERAPIST for your back issues. Your "chiropractor" may not be as mad as others but by going to him you are, by default, supporting a charlatan industry that harms people.
Posted by: Bride of Shrek OM
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October 21, 2009 10:57 PM
..and while I'm on the topic
I don't call that being really funny I call that being a total fucking hyprocrite and one more reason to drop his sorry arse, no matter how good a "Western" doctor you think he may be.
Posted by: SEF
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October 22, 2009 4:43 AM
@ speedweasel #54:
There might have been (if we ignore the fact that everyone originally came from Africa anyway and go by what was developed where from local materials). Eg using flakes of blue-stone at Stonehenge is currently suspected of being "medicine". Any herbal or ritual stuff of the celtic peoples ought to count as "Western" (unless you insist on only Native American Indian practices being far enough west). Quite possibly using dock leaves for nettle stings might count as old enough.
But yes, beyond that the term "Western" merely stands in for "effective" as opposed to "ineffective" and for "scientific" as opposed to "superstitious".
Posted by: eddie
|
October 22, 2009 6:09 AM
About the google translation thing; can we vote once for each language? Are there many other online translators we can use?
Also, if only those voting for the homeopathy could grow some irony.
Posted by: Q.E.D | October 22, 2009 7:44 AM
"Homeopaths without Borders"? What a fracking great insult to the actually heroic Doctors without Borders. These men and women go into war zones, famines, natural catastrophes to heal and cure the poor, war-torn, refugeed and disenfranchised. All this when they could be making a comfortable living in the comfy Western world.
Please give generously
http://doctorswithoutborders.org/
Posted by: Dave Kahn
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October 22, 2009 10:37 AM
@eddie #58
It seems you can vote as many times as you like using any language pair. After the confirmation box comes up just click on the Translate button again and away you go.
The good guys are pulling away again. Voting currently stands:
Raul Krauthausen, SOZIALHELDEN e.V.
9919 Stimmen
Elisabeth von Wedel, Homöopathen ohne Grenzen e.V.
7463 Stimmen
Posted by: Marion Delgado | October 23, 2009 7:05 PM
I was completely wrong, I had to go for a 3rd and even fourth dilution. This time around you really are doomed. the 3rd decanting and dilution was indeed 11 parts, and the 4th was 19 parts, and I tossed a page from Merck's Manual of Patient Symptoms into the blender alongside the printed Pharyngula column when I started. Actually, I have not yet given the organizers more Yogi tea, so I think a dilution of 1 part in 50 will finalize this, because the Pharyngula component is only 50 percent of the initial toxin.
By the way, anyone wondering why I don't panic over an apparent loss of our lead in the voting should realize that you are using alleopathic evidence and epistemology. In a natural homeopathic scientific test, the weaker and more diluted the evidence, as I have explained already, the stronger its effects as long as you know what you're doing.
Posted by: Migel | November 11, 2009 9:58 AM
Apparently to make it a bit more exciting, they've now made the ranking system invisible... I'd still recommend voting though, if indeed people are still voting...
Posted by: Michael | November 12, 2009 3:09 PM
Hi Mr Meyers,
us germans could use your help once more, we only have 3 days left. The results of the vote aren't visible anymore, but last time I checked, the quacks were ahead. One last push from your blog might really help us defeat them. I have no idea where they get all their supporters, but I'd hate to see something like "Homepaths named #1 social heroes." in the papers. In fact, it makes we wanna puke.
http://www.geben-gibt.de/projekt_detail_ansicht.html?&id=10 is the link, click on "Abstimmen" and solve the captcha. Thank you very much.