Still sore, and annoyed at a coworker

[redbird]

Not too surprisingly, I am stiffer today than yesterday. (The least fun part was probably dealing with the very heavy front doors of my office building; to do so without pain, I had to use my right leg to push the front door open, that being the only limb that would handle that much weight without trouble right now.)

The person at the next desk asked how I was feeling this morning, and when I said something about still being sore, she proceeded to try to convince me to try some sort of homeopathic "remedy" for sore muscles. I tried to be polite about saying no, she pushed and claimed that it works for her, and I got annoyed enough to tell her "if you can show me even one study that shows that it works, I'll try it."

Her response was to say that nobody had done studies. I pointed out that yes, they have, and the studies all show that homeopathy doesn't work, and it didn't surprise me that the people selling this stuff don't tell her that, but I'm not wasting my money. Her next line was "I can understand why you'd be skeptical…" which means some combination of "I don't actually understand that you actively disagree with me" and "I'm going to keep arguing, but have no intention of listening to your points." I said "enough" and tried to end the conversation, but a minute later got to the point of "Do you understand what 'Enough' means? It means I want to get back to work." That finally ended the discussion. We shall see what happens from here.

I've tried to be polite and just say things like "people are different" when she came up with weird nutritional theories. I have explained as calmly as I can that "how do you know it won't work?" is not sufficient argument for trying every new thing for which nobody offers evidence, but I'm not wasting my time or money to validate her delusions. Especially not while I have an interesting assortment of sore muscles and small bruises. She can get all more than she needs of that from Gary Null.

[hand-crossposted from LJ; comments welcome either place]

Comments

[voidampersand]

I thought homeopathic advice was where you gave vanishingly small quantities of it. And of course, the less you give, the more effective it is.

[purpletigron]

I like to evangelise the Placebo Effect at times like this.

Did you see the recent New Scientist article which examines how ineffectual but harmless remedies can become very popular because of those precise characteristics? There are lots of unwell people around desperately wanting to believe in the fake remedy, putting a lot of effort into promoting it, and staying ill so having more time to promote the idea!

[eftychia]

This is why we need to be so worried about homeopathic terrorists slipping a drop of orange juice into a reservoir and causing huge outbreaks of scurvy! Oh, wait ... never mind.

[I didn't come up with this notion; I'm paraphrasing somebody else. When I unload enough stuff from RAM that my computer runs a decent speed again, I'll try to look up who, in my QotD archives.]