Template talk:Homeopathy

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I'm not sure of the history of this template, so I don't want to upset anyone who worked hard on it, but a few things seem really problematic to me. The classifications seem a bit inexact.

  • under the "Philosophy: header, "psora" doesn't fit. There should be an article on miasms and psora should be a sub section in that article. I'd like to create an article on Miasms.
  • the category "reference material" is a bit of a mishmash. A few things there are stuff that homeopaths use as reference material; this seems appropriate. "Benveniste" is about the scientific basis of homeopathy itself. Another, "known homeopaths" seems strange because there is a whole line of homeopaths right below. I think Benveniste should be out of that line. There should probably be a line of articles on the scientific basis for homeopathy, but we're not there yet in Wikipedia with the articles.
  • the article collecting homeopaths should include the article on homeopaths (I am going to make that change now since I don't think it will be controversial). For the seperate listings, I'm not sure Rajesh Shah is notable ENOUGH to be in that line since the other folks there are more notable, and more notable folks (like Robin Murphy) have had their articles deleted. I won't take him out since I expect this to be controversial.
  • under "related therapies", "Veterinary homeopathy" is actually a type of homeopathy practiced by Vets. Maybe there should be a "branches of homeopathy" line and Vet homeopathy should be in it. I saw that there was once an article on "Classical homeopathy"; there should be and this should be in this section as well. IMO "Anthroposophy" is not a therapy (more of a cult religion, but I'm opinionated and biased against probably) and should not have a place on the tempplate. Herbalism and traditional medicine, also, not so much. They are part of CAM, but why put them on the template? Isopathy is a related therapy. Bach Flower remedies I don't know much about but they are probably related therapies.

What do people think? The template is only as good as the articles which exist to fill it and there coverage of this topic on Wikipedia right now is really thin. Abridged 23:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I see Adam just removed the word "therapies" to keep "Anthrosophy" in, but I'm wondering if we can discuss why it should be on the template at all. I know that these folks seem to like homeopathy, but so did Hitler. Should we put him on the template? (extreme example)Abridged 23:27, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, sorry. I actually removed (therapies) because at narrow resolutions, the template was all-too-easily looking something like this:
Related  blah bllah blah blah Veterinary
(therapies) homeopathy
Obviously, it wasn't necessarily that bad, but it could easily be seen as two different lists. By all means, let's remove Anthrosophy. That's Steiner schools, right? Not a term I've seen used more than once or twice, so didn't realise out-of-context what it was. Vanished user talk 23:41, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. Abridged 23:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)


Contents

[edit] recent changes

(moved from my talkpage to here) Sorry, I've been the only one working on it for a while, so I didn't actually realise there was anyone else to talk to about it.

Basically, the changes I made were:

Swapped Materia Medica for more relevant Homeopathic Materia Medica. Materia Medica is only secondarily homeopathy-related. Per a merge and cleanup, removed Materia Medica Pura Removed Herbalism as not strongly related to homeopathy. A little category name tweaking for appearance reasons. Vanished user talk 23:35, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Abridged 23:38, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removing

Anthroposophy and Traditional medicine - first only distantly related, second doesn't even mention homeopathy. I wonder if we should add allopathy, as the term was coined by Hahnemann, even if it's now more of a generalised alternative medicine slur against conventional. Vanished user talk 23:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

maybe under "philosophy"? Abridged 23:50, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. Seems more of a "related" to me, given that it's expanded a lot in usage since Hahnemann's time, and thus isn't as near to Homeopathy as it once was. That said, Bach flower remedies and Isopathy are really homeopathy branches - maybe we should put allopathy in "Related" and move the current two into "branches"? Or are one or both different enough not to count as a branch? Vanished user talk 00:03, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
I've made a few changes - rearranged the Homeopath list to put the founder second after the list of homeopaths, combined branches and the old related (sooner or later a proper version of Classical homeopathy and Clincal homeopathy will be made), and added allopathy and alternative medicine as related. See what you think, revert anything you don't like. I defer to you in this. Vanished user talk 00:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC)


Hi, no isopathy and bach are not actually homeopathy. They are related to homeopathy, but not homeopathy. I was thinking "philosophy" for allopathy because -- and this is abstract -- it was a fundamental aspect of Samuel Hahnemann's thinking on medicine in general when he developed homeopathy. It is not really a related therapy, or any therapy at all. If the list contains stuff like isopathy and bach remedies, then "allopathy" doesn't belong on the list. Abridged 00:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, so I moved bach and isopathy to "related" and left "allopathy" there. I don't have a strong opinon on that (other than wincing when I see the term --look at my userboxes if you don't understand :=) . I like the reorder you with the homeopaths. This looks much better now. Abridged 00:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Heh. Aye, I see. I have to admit I also dislike it, but it's a name made up by the founder of homeopathy, so it's relevant. Anyway, better to link to a (more or less) neutral view of the matter (though I rather question the assertion in that article that some people use the term neutrally - that may be true for my personal bugbear, Darwinism (relevant in historical discussions to distinguish it from other evolutionary theories of the Victorian period), but allopathy... no. Never seen it neutrally used. However, I digress) Better to link to a more-or-less neutral view than to actually use it. It was being used perjoratively in homeopathy until one of my clean-ups. Vanished user talk 01:02, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
Oh, I totally agree it is relevant and belongs on the template. It is in an ok place now---no problem with it since the last cat is a sort of a "misc" one. Abridged 11:41, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Possible addition?

Should we add Robin Murphy and Anthony Campbell? Vanished user talk 01:50, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. Murphy has the repertory and Cambell was editor of british homeopathic journal, but I'm not sure either of them make the "short list". There are probably more important homeopaths that don't have bios yet that will be at least as prom as those two and the template will be really crowded if we add everyone. They should probably be in the "list" article of homeopaths, but I think we should save the template for homeopaths with more stature. Abridged 01:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Minor appearance changes

Made a few minor appearance changes, fixed some bugs. Vanished user talk 16:17, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] addition of homeopath

Luc De Schepper added. He is one of the most prominent modern homeopaths, has written the now standard beginning text and an advanced text. Abridged talk 20:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if Rajesh Shah really belongs in major listing. He doesn't have the stature of the others up there. Abridged talk 20:24, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Let's lose Shah, then. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vanished user (talk • contribs) 18:24, 30 March 2007 (UTC).
I added Morrison and Jan Scholten. They are both very influenial authors in modern homeopathy who have written core texts. Abridged talk 17:25, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
someone put shah back. i'm not sure he is as hugely influential as others on the list, but i'm noit hugely opposed. the list can get longer and the template can get biggger. we could lose some of the "related" links like the flower remedies, etc, Abridged talk 18:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
I don't want to be petty here, but after further thought and investigation I removed Shah. I don't think he is as notable as others on the template who have made a really salient contribution. I was not even able to find his books for sale with the major US homeopathic booksellers. If I am in error, please see the talk page of his wikipedia bio and improve his article. I don't want to insult anyone. Abridged talk 16:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Shah

Could the editor who keeps adding him to the template please describe why he is notable enough to be one of a handful of homeopaths mentioned? He doesn't have any major publications and doesn't seem to have made a salient contribution. I might not know his work well enough to know his contribution, but I'll keep reverting until someone edits his biopage to show more notability. Abridged talk 22:32, 18 April 2007 (UTC)