Breaking news from the world of alternative medicine: homeopaths are in serious trouble. That, at least, is what current Google Trends statistics seem to suggest. One of Counterknowledge.com’s allies – the excellent Quackometer – has discovered that internet users in the UK are googling homeopathy 40% less than they were in 2004. Don’t believe it? Here is Google’s evidence:
It’s exciting stuff. But how does Google Trends work? Well according to the site, “it analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time.” So the top graph here shows a steep decline in the number of people googling “homeopathy”, while – distressingly for homeopaths – the graph below seems to indicate that any blips in that decline are because of a breaking news story ridiculing the pseudoscience. B coincides, for example, with the Lancet’s now famous article discrediting the idea that homeopathy is anything other than a placebo. C corresponds to the campaign by medical professionals to stop the NHS providing homeopathic treatments, while D occured when the scientific community joined forces to slate quackery in Britain’s universities.
As Quackometer points out, homeopathy will be dead and buried by 2012 if the current trend continues. Even in the short term, they observe, “it shows a devastating collapse in interest that surely must be reflected in the businesses of homeopaths.” Do let us know if you see a morose quack leaving his office laden with odd-looking bottles of arsenicum in a cardboard box – given the the current economic climate, it’s not unlikely that expensive homeopathic treatments will be dropped by previously loyal supporters. (Perhaps we should prepare for the worst, and set up a Former Homeopaths Benevolent Fund?)
But, you may well ask, how much should we read into these statistics? First, a Google disclaimer should be taken into account:
The data Trends produces may contain inaccuracies for a number of reasons, including data-sampling issues and a variety of approximations that are used to compute results. We hope you find this service interesting and entertaining, but you probably wouldn’t want to write your Ph.D. dissertation based on the information provided by Trends.
Nevertheless, when researching other subjects, the data seems to ring true. Take HRH The Prince of Counterknowledge, for example. Here’s the graph when you search for “Prince Charles“:
It makes a lot of sense. There are peaks of interest around the time of his marriage to Camilla Parker-Bowles and, more recently, at his 60th birthday. The other smaller peaks, I would bet, coincide with his brazen statements on GM crops. Other Google Trends graphs which indicate accuracy include those for “9/11“, “9/11 conspiracy” (both peak each year around September 11th) and, a neutral one, “Facebook“, which shows how much the social networking website has grown since 2006.
All the evidence points to one conclusion: homeopathy isn’t fooling as many people as it used to. It must be remembered, after all, that Samuel Hahnemann invented it in the late 18th century. Back then, in a world of botched operations, medicinal leeches and belief that blood moved in tides, it all made sense. Now, Google tells us, we know better. There are other signs too: the “University” of Central Lancashire had to scrap its quack degrees earlier this year, and the Society of Homeopaths has stopped publishing its membership figures. Is homeopathy in its death throes?
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16 responses
much as I would like to think that this points to the demise of homeopathy, I can think of an alternative explanation of this data: let’s simplistically consider why people might search for something… one of the obvious cases (especially for a long, quasi-medical term) is that they don’t know what it is and they want a definition. The other main case would be people searching for services related to something.
I could imagine that it is at least possible that this data simply indicates that most people now understand homeopathy (er, well, as much as it possible to understand if you know what I mean) and therefore searches are dropping off while underlying demand is still constant.
I hope that’s not the case but let’s be a little more scientific with interpretation of data huh? Especially given that it is a complete disregard for scientific proof that supports all this nonsense in the first place
This data is not 100% scientific, Iain, and I think my post makes that very clear.
But your interpretation, that “it is at least possible that this data simply indicates that most people now understand homeopathy… and therefore searches are dropping off while underlying demand is still constant”, is possible but, in my opinion, much less likely.
Google is the internet’s most prevalent search tool - if people are googling “homeopathy” less, it probably shows less interest in the alternative medicine. People know who Prince Charles is, but that won’t stop them googling him if it is his birthday!
I don’t know, Ian may have a point. Check ISP for trends and there’s a more dramatic drop off
http://www.google.com/trends?q=isp&ctab=0&geo=GB&geor=all&date=all&sort=0
Would this suggest that ISPs are going out of business (if they were currently going out of business I guess that could cause a drop off, presumably in searches for everything though), I would suggest that 4/5 years ago a the start of the broadband explosion, noonoe knew what an ISP was, now people are familliar with the concept.
I do however wish you continued good fortune in any attempt to quash the evil homeopathy!!
Piers, that’s is an interesting observation. But I’m not sure there’s a link - homeopathy has been around (as I mentioned in the article) since the late 18th century. There was no homeopathy explosion in 2004, so no obvious reason for people to stop wanting to search for it now. I maintain that the most likely explanation for a drop in google searches is an overall lack of interest in the subject.
It would be interesting to see a comparison/contrast in the trends of multi-word searches. For example, we can infer different things from the trends in searches for
homeopathy buy now
versus trends in searches for
homeopathy scams
or
homeopathy criticism
I notice the same thing for “alternative medicine”.
On the other side of the fence, here’s Google trends on “counterknowledge” and “pseudoscience”:
“Your terms - counterknowledge - do not have enough search volume to show graphs.”
“Your terms - pseudoscience - do not have enough search volume to show graphs.”
(
Surely for a homeopath the less of something there is the *better* the result?
@ Steve
LOL!!!
Will, you don’t really get the whole scientific approach and constructive criticism thing do you?
I pointed out a perfectly plausible alternative interpretation of the data (and note, I know the *data* is not 100% accurate or ’scientific’ but I’m saying your *interpretation* is not scientific…). You just rejected it out of hand since in your “opinion” you think you’re right.
It didn’t take me very long to google and find the following articles for UK and US markets respectively which (sadly) suggests homeopathy booming:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/apr/20/healthandwellbeing.medicalresearch
http://www.retailwire.com/Discussions/Sngl_Discussion.cfm/13169
Perhaps a bit of research would have rounded out the article?
Now you might still be right and I hope you are… but the point is your article directly inferred a very simple correlation between searches and homeopathy demand. Which isn’t much better journalism than the media inferring that archeologists have just found oil which might have been used to wash Jesus’ feet (and which this site rightly derided as sloppy and sensationalist).
Start paying more attention to Ben Goldacre’s Bad Science site and be very careful about correlation…
Hi Iain,
Sorry for the delayed response. Your previous criticism was appreciated and, indeed, constructive!
But how it is really possible to have a scientific approach to what, as we both agree, is unscientific data?
I did accept your interpretation as “possible”/plausible, and my dismissal of it was largely because of my opinion. However, my opinion is based on other factors: Why did the “University” of Central Lancashire scrap its quack degrees earlier this year? And why has the Society of Homeopaths stopped publishing its membership figures?
My comment and the article make very clear that the Google correlation is not exactly concrete evidence (I even quote at length Google’s disclaimer!) but I still feel it was worth noting.
Your articles - thank you for the links - are not specific to homeopathy. And the Guardian, bless it, quotes Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University. Research him, why don’t you?
All the best,
Will
For every article claiming a massive increase in those trying out alternative remedies, you find another claiming the contrary - or at least suggesting that the real number of CAM enthusiasts is actually very low.
It’s difficult to work out exactly where the truth lies, partly because a lot of the figures come from members of the CAM industry itself. When governments do conduct surveys, the results are often worrying:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/132568.php
(It should be noted that “alternative” is defined pretty broadly by this survey, though.)
http://health.usnews.com/blogs/comarow-on-quality/2008/12/12/alternative-medicines-rapid-spread-nonsense.html?s_cid=rss:comarow-on-quality:alternative-medicines-rapid-spread-nonsense
I would seriously doubt that homeopathy would be destroyed by 2012. The search volume drop simply means people are finding homeopathic products by other means. It will probably continue to grow throughout the UK and the rest of the world due to low cost of products.
Searches for everything are down because we are having a recession. Duh! Pretty graph though! Property searches are down. Does this mean the end of estate agents by 2012? I certainly hope so! Homeopathy saved my sisters life. She had terrible asthma requiring frequent hospitalization. I remember the ambulances. She was under the care of Great Ormond Street but nothing they had helped much at all. The doctors at the London Homeopathic Hospital made her better.
A decline in web search in a subject does never indicate reducing use of that branch of knowledge.On the other hand , one has to find out what age group of people and for which purpose they are mostly browsing web.I hope this will clear the storm in a tea pot., thanks.
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