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Talk:Homeopathy/Archive 1

I added the link to faith healing because both treatments rely substantially on belief (though not necessarily religious belief) in order for the treatments to work, as well as the rejection of modern medical techniques. Is this not relevant? -- sodium

Well, I think homeopathy proponents would disagree with you that homeopathy relies on faith. They consider it to be scientifically valid. I think that a link to alternative medicine would be appropriate, though.

Ah, yet another illustration of what is wrong with Wikipedia. We had an article on homeopathy that attempted to be balanced, and I think it succeeded. Then, a series of changes were added with no interest in pursuing NPOV, complete with a long quotation from another work attacking thesubject, is added to the article. However, since deleting text is a faux pas in Wikipedia, the added text is just supposed to stand as it is and instead, presumably, for the sake of balance anyone who wants to restore a semblance of NPOV here would have to put in an equal amount of text that served as a rebuttal, so that both sides would have an equal amount of text. This does not make for an encyclopedia article.

 * So revert it if you want. There's no official policy against doing so. --Zundark, 2001 Dec 11

 * I got attacked for doing that in the feminism article. I am not even a proponent of homeopathy, but I am not about to get into another war of deletion and addition.

This does not make for an encyclopedia article.

You are incorrect. The only way to handle controversies in an encyclopedia properly is to present both sides of the controversy to the extent to which this is reasonably possible. The original article ignored facts and was therefore incomplete.

What is undesirable is to have this presentation in the form "Party X argues that .. party Y replies that .. party X responds taht .." -- if such paragraphs become the norm, the article should be split into separate pro and contra positions which can be read independently.

It is now up to the homeopathy folks to present an actual reasonable argument for homeopathy, including citations (please!). Eloquence

I totally agree. There *is* a big debate over the value of homeopathy and it should be represented in the article. The fact that one side is properly represented now should be seen as better than having no sides properly represented before, eventually the NPOV should sort itself out. -- sodium

 * Why do there have to be "sides" represented at all? Why not just present the facts about what is found in a belief system and let the reader decide?  I dislike articles in wikipedia that have a he-said/she-said feel about them.

Well, I tried to summarize what you added and removed the long quote, but if you don't agree with what I did, then return it back to the way it was. I am not interested in getting into another fight over another article.

Sorry, you deleted critical information. Neither the nature of the quote nor its content prohibits inclusion according to the criteria of an encyclopedia. As I said, the best way to "balance" the article, if proponents of homeopathy find the current article unbalanced, is to add additional information, including quotes (which may well criticize the other side).

Why do there have to be "sides" represented at all? Why not just present the facts about what is found in a belief system and let the reader decide?

Because people disagree about what the facts are. I believe that Wikipedia should not be postmodernist and acknowledge that there is an objective reality which can be approximated, everything else would doom this project to failure. However, different perspectives on a subject deserve to be acknowledged where reasonable people may disagree. For example, I do not find "flat earth theory" worth including in the "geology" node, but only because its very premise rejects science altogether. Homeopathy at least pretends to be scientific, and this pretense must be adequately treated. --Eloquence

 * Oh, and who gets to decide what is reasonable? This view this does not jibe with your other statement that all proponents of all sides should get their two cents worth into an article.  Either we turn the article into a dumping ground for every point of view, or we don't.  If we start opening it up to various points of view, then using the article specifically to discredit an unscientific point of view isn't possible, because you have already stated that you want to present all sides.  But now you are saying that you don't want to present all sides, but rather to specifically present the side that "reasonable" people believe, whoever the hell they are.

 * Oh, and who gets to decide what is reasonable? Don't misunderstand me: A theory or hypothesis that claims to be an attempt to approximate the truth is worth being represented even if we believe that it is "clearly" false. What would be unreasonable is to represent a point of view whose proponents argue that they, for whatever reason, are not bound by the standards of science and rationalism and do not need to defend or prove their claims: These views should be represented as "belief systems", but not in the context of statements of facts. Pseudoscience is a border case, and you know how the saying goes: in dubio pro reo.

Please don't fight, boys. I also strongly disbelieve in homeopathy, possibly as strongly as LDC disbelieves in creationism. Yet the best way to show homeopathy up for the crock it is, is to give it the most sympathetic explanation possible; then, follow up with a concise paragraph explaining its unscientific basis. --Ed Poor, reformed axe-grinder

Ed: I see no reason to be unnecessarily concise either in presentation or rebuttal. Adequacy is essential, not brevity. -- Eloquence

(from rev. 11): ''Proponents argue, however, that homeopathy is, in fact, effective. ''

This can't really be given as a serious argument. Homeopathy has not *proven* itself - both sides would probably agree that. This would simply be their opinion. Critics could then argue "that homeopathy is, in fact, not effective" etc... -- sodium

 * I am not a proponent of homeopathy, so I can't really give a fair treatment to this article, but it seems that this will not be an NPOV article, but instead critics of homeopathy will always get the last word in any discussion of the issues involved. I was attempting to make a feeble last gasp effort at introducing some balance to this article, but it is clearly a failed effort since Wikipedia is not a project committed to balance or NPOV.

 * Egern: (I know I really shouldn't tell people to, but...) calm down. There need not be any "feeble last gasp effort", Wikipedia is not going anywhere. In a few weeks it might just happen that a massive crowd of Homeopathy proponents arrive at this page and turn it completely round. After that it will be shuffled around more until eventually it reaches equilibrium. NPOV is always to be strived for, but it doesn't necessarily have to arrive immediately. -- sodium

 * For example when I arrived at this page this afternoon it was blatantly pro-homeopathic and had been so since Dec 2. I worked on it, but made it too anti-. Then it was re-edited etc... It is much better now than it was this afternoon though. -- sodium

It might be good to remove the link to pseudoscience, unless someone also wants to link Chiropractic to pseudoscience...

I'd leave the links in both. "Straight" chiropractic, like Homeopathy, denies the very basic scientific facts of medicine; i.e., that germs cause disease. Homeopaths and straight chiropractors both calim you can treat bacterial and viral infections with plain water and spinal manipulations. "Pseudoscience" is a good word for that. My only reservation is that most chiropractors today are not the old "straight" variety, but are rather the more sensible variety that only treat back pain and such, and refer really sick people to real doctors, so I don't want to paint them with the same brush. --LDC

Homeopathy denies that germs cause disease? Can you provide a source for that?

Well, Hahnemann's codexes make no mention of bacteria or viruses. His treatments were based entirely on symptoms; he made no allowances at all for the source of disease. If two patients have the same symptoms, they get the same treatment according to the codex. It doesn't matter whether one of them has Tuberculosis and one of them has AIDS--they both get the same distilled water. Modern Homeopaths might accept basic germ theory, but they are still restricted to making their magic potions according to the codex. --LDC

 * I think there is no question that modern homeopaths do accept that germs cause disease. So your earlier statement that homeopaths deny that germs cause disease just isn't true.  It is true that their approach to treating disease doesn't focus on, or even care about, the pathogen that causes the disease.  Instead, it attempts (in theory, and perhaps it is a totally bogus theory) to use the body's natural defenses to fight the disease, rather than using modern medicine's method of attacking the pathogen directly via powerful drugs. Clearly this mechanism doesn't depend on the pathogen per se.  Maybe the homeopathic remedies are nothing but useless "magic potions", as you describe it, but let's at least be accurate and not accuse them of something that isn't true.

I said no such thing, and I don't appreciate being misquoted. What I said was that Homeopathy denies the germ theory, and that is true, regardless of whether ot not particular homeopaths do (even if all of them do). This is an article on homeopathy, the theory and practice, not individual human homeopaths. And the issue (remember, we had a topic of discussion here) was whether or not the link to "pseudoscience" was appropriate. If the theory is pseudoscience, it clearly is, regardless of individual beliefs in the theory. --LDC

 * No, it is not true. Homeopathy neither denies nor affirms germ theory.  Germ theory is simply irrelevant to the remedies that it proposes.  That is why homeopaths can be homeopaths and still accept germ theory.  To assert that homeopathy denies germ theory is simply incorrect.

Oh, all right, how about "...fails to acknowledge the germ theory of disease as the primary means of understanding and treating illness."? At any rate, that's still not what we're talking about--I only used that as an example. What we were talking about is whether or not the link to "pseudoscience" was a good idea, and I maintain that it is, since the theory itself--being encoded in an unchanging set of books--resists scientific discovery and improvement. --LDC
 * Hahnemann had one very good reason for not mentioning germs. He lived from 1755 until 1843.  Pasteur's groundbreaking observations about childbirth fever took place in 1856.  Doesn't this qualify Hahnemann's personal efforts as protoscience? Eclecticology

I am not a proponent (or an opponent of homeopathy), and there are aspects of it I don't know much about. If it is really true that homeopathy resists any investigation into new ways to apply, alter, or improve upon its method, then I would agree that it is unscientific. On the other hand, I am curious how much scientific research is even being done on ways to alter the homeopathic method that some hypothetical dogmatic homeopathic practitioners would be resisting. -- Egern

At least in the US, homeopathy is tolerated as an "alternative" medicine without any oversight only because their preparations are known to be harmless (because they don't contain anything). If homeopaths started producing products that had actual effects and measurable amounts of active ingredients, those preparations would be considered normal medicine and would fall under regulation by the FDA, and homepaths wouldn't be allowed to dispense them. This has already happened to a small degree: there are a few preparations loosely based on homepathic principles except that they aren't diluted as much, and therefore actually contain medicine. These are advertised as "homepathic", but they require a prescription from a real doctor and can't be sold by homepaths. Vertigoheel, for example, contains measurable amounts of some ingredients (including hemlock!), and is used to treat dizziness (which is a side-effect of larger amounts of those ingredients). It is sold as "homeopathic", but it's really just a medicinal herb mixture that requires a doctor's prescription because its ingredients are dangerous. Typical of the homepathy business, they market it by pointing to a study that compared it to another drug--betahistine--which is commonly prescribed, but that did not properly compare it to a placebo. Although betahistine is commonly used, it has never been adequately tested either, so their study proves nothing; it is only a deliberately dishonest tactic to give their drug an undeserved reputation by comparing it to a non-homeopathic drug with an existing undeserved reputation. --LDC

 * I'm not sure that's entirely true -- lots of homeopathic remedies in the US are not the dilute formulae recommended by Hahnemann at all -- they are just some formulation of whatever the substance is -- often just straight herbal remedies. As such, many are unregulated, not because of potency, but because herbal remedies, unless proven to be either efficacious or harmful, aren't normally regulated.

That's true of many herbal things, but homeopaths are specifically allowed to use even illegal herbs, because their final products don't contain measurable amounts. Sure, anyone can sell you feverfew or St. John wort, and that's almost totally unregulated. But homeopaths can sell you diluted preparations of opium, marijuana, and other things--so long as they are prepared according to the codex and diluted to the vanishing point. Some homeopaths might also sell St. John's wort, but calling that "homeopathic" is disingenuous.

 * What you are describing is the marketing of a non-homeopathic substance that is incorrectly called "homeopathic", so the comparison you mention is between two non-homeopathic drugs. That has nothing to do with the efficacy or validity of homeopathy, though, and has everything to do with marketing.  -- Egern

Hi, I haven't returned to this site since I put in the original entry, and to be honest I'm both thrilled and disappointed. Thrilled because people have obviously felt strongly enough about the issue to write so much about it, but disappointed becuase of the fact that so many stereotypes about homoeopathy have been used here and that people have obviously not actually made much effort to really find out whether what they are arguing is valid. However, I do think that everyone is entitled to their view and in a sense that is what the whole issue is about. I am a 'proponent' of homoeopathy, because it has worked for me on many different levels (it corresponds to my social and political beliefs as well as simply improving my health and well-being). Essentially the discourse in the West about health and healing has been dominated by a small groups of health practitioners who benefit economically and socially from their privileged position as 'doctors', and the focus on drugs and hi-tech equipment for surgery has chiefly served the interests of the pharmaceutical companies that produce them. This is not a question about 'science' because science itself it subservient to the system. 'Science' as we commonly understand it is a result of the conditions of its production, someone mentioned earlier in the discussion that:

This is an article on homeopathy, the theory and practice, not individual human homeopaths

Now, in fact pure science is a myth, because humans are fallible, and humans produce scientific knowledge. This does not mean that science does not produce useful knowledge, it is just that it is not too be accepted on faith. Otherwise why would scientific theory need to be modified. (For a more eloquent desciption of this argument, see Thomas Kuhn's work on the structure of scientific revolutions)

I am not asking people to discount 'scientific' medicine, because it has undoubtedly done so much to improve the quality of people's lives. Things such as hip replacements, anaesthetic, insulin for diabetics and incubators are wonderful. Just do not assume that what it says now will never change, just think about what 'scientific' doctors were prescribing for people a hundred, or even fifty years ago, that now seem antiquated. There have been articles in the BMJ and the Lancet that demonstrate that homoeopathic medicines have an effect beyond placebo, there is also beginning to be more research into the unusually powerful effect of extreme dilutions. Our current theories in science can not account for these effects, but are we so arrogant and to presume that we know all there is to know. I don't believe so. And it is just because these effects could not be hypothesised by current understandings that they are so under- researched.

One last point before I sign off, earlier discussions mentioned that homoeopathy 'fails to acknowledge germ theory a the primary means of understanding and treating illness'. The response that homoeopathy by no means denies the importance of germs, it is just not relevant to the way that dis-ease is treated, I agree with. However, that is not my point. It is that I think that most orthodox doctors today would be most offended if you were to suggest to them that germ theory was their 'primary' source of understanding about disease. The majority of ill-health that the health services deal with in the West, and certainly (for the money conscious) the most expensive, is chronic illness, such as heart disease and cancer, and these are such complex phenomena that they are not reducible to a single or even a combination of 'germs'.

Just don't assume that something we don't fully understand (yet?) is necessarily without any worth. -Nicola

(Addition not written by Enter the Dragon, just on his computer)

 * I don't agree with you that there is some kind of conspiracy between doctors and pharmaceuticals. Any student who goes in to medicine to "benefit economically and socially from their privileged position" is going to be sadly disapointed, working in the city gives a better paid and very much less stressful job than as a health practitioner. I also disagree with your statement about the "stereotypes of homeopathy" present, any examples? The trials have been included but in context--there has been both success and failure and this is why whether homeopathy works is still debateable. Also why the quote marks around " 'scientific' medicine" and 'germs'?

I dunno....all this talk of meta-analyses (with all the problems of selective publication of results) being required to show statistically detectable effects from dilutions containing no molecules of active agent sounds remarkably like Irving Langmuir's definition of Pathological science, particularly his first two criteria.... Malcolm Farmer

Surely conventional medicine entirely rejects the idea that symptoms (as a group) are the body's attempt to fight disease. Sure, some symptoms of some diseases are the byproducts of immune system actions, but to make that claim *in general* doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny. --Robert Merkel

 * Well, but fever and inflammation are both considered symptoms, aren't they? According to my understanding - and I am not medically trained - both are mechanisms by which the body attempts to raise its temperature (globally or locally) to fight off bacterial infections. Likewise, nausea can plausibly be seen as a biological attempt to expell an offending substance as soon as possible...

 * Now, if someone is claiming that this is any sort of "planned attack", then I would agree that there's no concious action here - just a reaction that happens to be largely beneficial and therefore has been favored in natural selection. Of course, in individual cases, the reactions can also work against the body's global best interests, as very high fevers, arthritic inflammations, et cetera.  -- April

As the "esteemed gentleman" would no doubt say, I should not have merely copied his Talk comment verbatim into the article. I admired his way with words, but I apologize and withdraw the admiration :-) -- a repentant User:Ed Poor - There is little doubt that the proponents of homeopathy bear the burden of proof when it comes to establishing the validity of their practice. However, where a critic has made a comment that double-blind experiments have been made to disprove homeopathy, he owes us a little more than that bare statement.  The critic's new burden of proof is to lead us to the alleged studies so that we can evaluate them ourselves, and see whether they are "falsifiable". Eclecticology

--

Current discussions
RK: You clearly feel very strongly about homeopathy, but that is no reason to discount the fact that it works just fine for millions of people, including many MDs. Several of the statements you made in the article are factually incorrect, and the rest are subjective and shouldn't be presented as fact, but as opinions of critics. Plese think twice before committing changes to wikipedia articles on subjects about which you feel strongly. Mkweise 20:24 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)

 * Homeopathy does not work fine for millions of people. In fact, it has never been shown to work at all for anyone. Homeopathy advocates may not present wishful thinking about their supposed successes in medical treatments, and present such unsubstantiated claims as if they were verified. I could just as easily claim that eating Rhinocerous horn powder "works just fine for millions of people, including many MDs"; yet this claim has the same amount of evidence to back it up. I am thus restoring the recent addtions and changes. This article must be science based and NPOV. Pushing pseudo-science and deleting mainstream scientific criticism is not acceptable here. Further, you had no right to delete the primary criticism against homeopathy (the fact that it totally contradicts itself.) RK

RK, you wrote ''Restoring the recent addtions and changes. This article must be science based and NPOV. Pushing pseudo-science and deleting mainstream scientific criticism is not acceptable here.'' I'm not sure I agree with all of that, although I sure liked the part about NPOV.

Homeopathy is a theory which is believed by its advocates. In addition, these advocates make claims about homeopathic cures, such as how effective they are. I don't think it's the role of the Wikipedia to evaluate these claims.

 * I agree with you, Ed. It is the role of the scientific community to evalulate these claims. And for 150 years scientists and doctors have reserached these claims. All they have found are lies, frauds, hoaxes, bias, the placebo effect, and errors. And this article needs to present the results of the last 150 years of scientific research. RK

Rather, a neutral article would balance the claims of Homeopathy supporters against reports from Homeopathy opponents and others who disagree with the supporters' claims. The essence of neutrality, as I'm sure you recall, is not to take sides.

 * Actually I suggest that this would not be neutral. Should our article on Unicorns and on Leprechauns also present their real existence as equally valid concepts, one in which both points of view (pro their existence, and against their existence) are equally scientifically valid? If someone claims that something huge and imporant exists, they need to show reason that it exists. This has been done for Special Relativity and Quantum mechanics. It has not been done for Unicorns or homeopathy. RK

(Personally, I think homeopathy is utter foolishness: at best, homeopathic remedies are mere placebos. But my p.o.v. is not important to this article.)

Let the article report the claims of homepathy supporters as well as the claims of "mainstream" scientific investigators, and trust that the reader is competent to make up their own mind, eh? --Uncle Ed 20:42 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)

RK: Just because a theory is not scientifically proven to your satisfaction should not prevent you from reporting it.

 * Alright, I am sorry. Maybe I have been too caustic with you, and that was not my intent. I am just a real purist about science. However, I hope we can agree that anyone can easily prove that homeopathy (or any claim) is real. Just perform an experiment in a double-blind controlled study. This prevents the placebo effect from fooling anyone, and it also prevents scientists and doctors from being biased. If homepathy is fallacious, then the results of the control group will be about the same as the experiment group. If homeopathy works, then the experiment group will experience a measurable and repeatable difference.  However, such experiments have been done, and they have failed every time, even when they are done by those who are advocates of homeopathy. At this point, I believe we are bound by NPOV policy to present the topic in this light, until and unless other evidence comes forward. RK

 * My understanding of NPOV policy is to report beliefs and theories as such, to report or summarize the results of specific studies as such, perhaps to cite the conclusions of specific experts, but never slip in our own conclusions. I also believe that, in the interest of clarity, controversial subjects are best covered by first describing the controversial thesis, then presenting the antithesis. Not by going into soapbox mode halfway through the opening paragraph. Mkweise 00:30 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

 * Quite an old comment, but I will reply. I agree regarding beliefs and hypotheses (not theories), but disagree regarding the facts. Facts shall be reported very clearly and not be balanced with speculations and wishful thinking.

The existance of Heaven and Hell is not scientifically proven, nor is the feficacy of prayer -- yet I don't see you going over to the Christianity article and lacing every single paragraph with your caustic POV remarks. The article has an extensive Criticism section, as it should. If you have anything rational to add, put it there and don't interfere with the objective desription of the practice and how it is believed to work by a great number of people. Mkweise 21:17 Feb 18, 2003 (UTC)

 * Actually, I have gone over the Christianity, Judaism and theism articles, and laced them with NPOV remarks!. And I say this as a monotheist; I don't hold myself to standards that differ from anyone else.  All of our articles on Judaism, Christianity and Islam present a great many claims. However none of these articles present any of these claims as factually true; they only present them as the religious beliefs of those faith's adherents.  And believe me, this has pissed off members of my own faith...  RK

 * I really don't see how you can honestly refer to such changes as "some consider" to "is" or the removal of qualifiers such as "possibly" as NPOVifying. Also, your statement that all MDs reject homeopathy is factually incorrect, as the majority of serious practitioners of homeopathy are MDs (including Hahnemann, Kent and Boericke.)
 * I've written a summary of how homeopathy is supposed to work, and I'm incorporating the new paragraph you added under criticism, but reverting the changes you made that don't add anything but a point of view to the article. Mkweise 01:52 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

 * The thing about the opening paragraph is that the chemical composition of the final remedy varies - it's never pure water AFAIK; most remedies are sold in the form of lactose pellets, and liquid remedies contain ethanol. Mkweise

Eloquence: Your commend about eastern Europe and threshold nations is news to me, but I can tell you with certainty that homeopathy is taken very seriously in Germany (the only country I know of where remedies are regulated as drugs.) There as well as in the UK, it's taken seriously enough for insurance companies to offer health plans that cover homeopathic treatment. I'm not quite sure about France, but it's definitely more widely accepted there than in the US. Mkweise

As for how wide-spread homeopathy is, unless you can provide some statistics, I am not willing to accept the claim that it is "widely accepted as valid in parts of Europe". What does that mean? That there is a large market? No doubt about it. That the academic/scientific establishment accepts it? Hardly. This may be the case in threshold nations where science is often corrupted by snake oil salesmen. As a German, I can say that the opposition to homeopathy as a pseudoscience is hardly unique to the US. --Eloquence 02:16 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

 * I have no statistics, only anecdotal evidence from living there for a decade. I'd say that maybe 1 in 50 Americans has ever taken a homeopathic remedy, whereas among my European acquantances it's more like 1 in 2. Doctors in Germany can and do prescribe homeopathic remedies, allbeit (with the exception of actual homeopathic doctors) mostly in cases where conventional medicine can't offer much help, such as migrane, tinnitus and what they collectively refer to as psychosomatic conditions. Hell, in Germany you can pick up homeopathic remedies at any corner Apotheke, whereas most US pharmacists wouldn't even understand what you're asking for.
 * Unless you know something about eastern Europe and those "other threshold nations" you mentioned that I don't, you should remove those statements. Homeopathy definitely is more prevalent in Germany/Switzerland/Austria than in the rest of Europe. Mkweise

 * Once again, I am well aware that there is a large market for homeopathy in Europe, and that it enjoys some political support, especially in Germany (political interest in pseudoscientific remedies in Germany dates back to the Third Reich). There are many reasons for this, one key reason is that the pharma industry has succesfully lobbied against the introduction of a whitelist for medicine that is refunded through public health insurance, which benefits both large corporations like Bayer and small manufacturers of homeopathic "medicine" Such a whitelist was already prepared under the CDU government. The list was given to the president of the association of the pharma industry (BPI), Prof. Vogel, on his 60th birthday -- in shreddered form.

 * In spite of this successful lobbying, reputable scientists have long attacked the status quo. This speech by Prof. Johannes Köbberling gives a good summary:

 * "Noch eindeutiger ist die Situation bei der Homöopathie. Für die gläubigen Anhänger dieser Therapieform existiert eine Art Bibel der reinen Lehre, nämlich Hahnemanns Organon. Hahnemann hat vor 200 Jahren ein in sich geschlossenes und von ihm selbst als definitiv erachtetes Lehrgebäude errichtet. Solche geschlossenen Systeme, so unsinnig sie auch sind, üben eine gewisse Faszination auf manche Menschen aus. So haben es die Vertreter dieser Lehre geschafft, daß in der Öffentlichkeit der Eindruck entstanden ist, hier sei eine ernsthafte Alternative zur Medizin zu finden, eine Auffassung die nicht selten auch von sonst kritischen und in anderen Bereichen vernünftigen Menschen geteilt wird. Weder der bekannte Ähnlichkeitssatz noch die Potenzierung durch extremes Verdünnen sind in irgendeiner Weise wissenschaftlich belegt. Erfolgsberichte über homöopathische Heilungen betreffen nie größere Patientengruppen mit bestimmten Krankheiten, sondern bestehen aus einzelnen Fallbeschreibungen. Fallbeschreibungen entziehen sich aber der Falsifikationsmöglichkeit, sie sind prinzipiell wahr."

 * Short version in English: It's a dogmatic belief system and there's no evidence that it works, but these people have managed to create the public impression that homeopathy should be taken seriously. The crucial question for this article is: Is the situation in academia, with regard to homeopathy, in Europe different from the US? --Eloquence 04:29 Feb 19, 2003 (UTC)

 * Exactly: The public impression that homeopathy should be taken seriously exists in India and parts of Europe (especially Germany/Austria/Switzerland). This is not the case in north America, and certainly not in China, nor (AFAIK) in the rest of the world. I think the phrase widely accepted is accurate, but if you want to put something like enjoys widespread public acceptance instad, that's OK with me.

 * Also, your 3rd Reich comment is interesting - if you have any information relating specifically to homeopathy under Nazi rule, that certainly belongs in the article.

 * I'm not sure it's relevant to distinguish between the views of non-medical academia and those of the general population. I hold a Dipl.-Ing. degree in IT, but I don't see how that qualifies me as a medical expert.

 * FWIW, I was sceptical of homeopathy until I personally witnessed my wife's cat go from completely unresponsive to being able to stand up and walk around within minutes of receiving a single pellet of Belladonna C30. Conclusive evidence? No. But certainly sufficient to warrant keeping an open mind. Mkweise

 * Certainly, homeopathy enjoys more acceptance from the general public in WE than in the US. Similarly, in the US, creationism enjoys a lot of acceptance from the general public. This is interesting, but it has nothing to do with the views of scientists. Nor does the fact that German doctors are willing to prescribe homeopathic remedies: They are, first and foremost, businessmen, often with an education based almost exclusively on memorization. It is the views of medical researchers and biologists that give us the most insight into the scientific view on homeopathy, and the cited speech above gives a good impression where these people stand. (The views of physicists and other "hard" scientists are also interesting as these people usually have a sound scientific mindset.) My reference to threshold nations was to researchers in those countries; there's quite a lot of room for parapsychology and all sorts of charlatanerie masked as professional science in such nations.

 * As for the Third Reich, yes, they explicitly supported homeopathy, see for a summary; I might add a few facts from there to the article. As for your personal experience, there are a lot of similar experiences regarding prayer, touch healing, acupuncture, hypnosis etc. The critical question is that of reproducibility. If people continue to believe in something that, according to the laws of physics, cannot work, and that has never been demonstrated to work, one has to wonder why they do that. --Eloquence 05:38 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

 * Are you aware that many drugs claiming to be "homeopathic" are 'not actually homepathic, and in fact contain measurable and significant amounts of medically effective pharmaceuticals? (This is one of the complaints against the homeopathy industry that has yet to make it into the article. The title "homeopathy" is used, but actual medicine is in them dilutions...) RK

 * Yes, I've been intending to add a section on pseudohomeopathy, but haven't gotten around to it yet. Chemical effects can be ruled out at C30, though, as that equates to a dilution factor of 1:1060. Few remedies retain any measurable chemical effects beyond C3 or D6, and AFAIK none beyond C6 or D12. Pseudohomeopathic remedies usually contain multiple ingredients (a big no-no in classical homeopathy) at D3 and lower potencies. Mkweise

The top-level (double =) headings are now: Theory History Current status Criticism Arguments by supporters External links

I am a bit undecided as to whether "Theory" belongs before or after "History". What do you all think?

The new "Current status" section consists of the former 2nd paragraph and various other paragraphs that had been under headings they had nothing to do with. It flows logically into "Criticism", so that's probably the best place for it. The opening paragraph is a bit short for my taste, but has the virtue of containing only undisputed fact. Mkweise

 * My main problem is that status/criticism should be summarized in the first paragraph. I don't want to read several paragraphs to first notice that the majority of scientists considers it bunk. --Eloquence 05:38 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

 * IMO the status is very well summarized in the word controversial. Putting any opinions in the opening paragraph is bad, because then everyone and their uncle will want to squeeze their own opinion in too.
 * Also, keep in mind that ideally, encyclopedic writing aims to inform while allowing the reader to form his own opinion. Check out how Encyclopedia Britannica manages to avoid taking sides, or the short but informative article at http://encyclopedia.com/html/h1/homeopat.asp. Mkweise 19:34 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

 * That's Columbia, not Britannica, and the article is obviously worthless. NPOV dictates that opinions need to be represented according to the number and status of their adherents, so "everyone and their uncle will want to squeeze their own opinion in" is not a valid argument. --Eloquence 19:40 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

 * I said check out EB or (meaning in case you don't have an EB handy) encyclopedia.com. Mkweise 20:40 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

 * Oops, sorry about that. Would you mind pasting the EB article on my talk page? --Eloquence 20:46 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

 * I really don't want to retype the entire article, but find it noteworthy that - as is usually case in encyclopedic writing - value judgments and criticism are strictly confined to the last paragraph, which starts out:
 * "In the medical profession homeopathy at time of writing remained under the stigma of being a dissenting sect. In the United States [...] there were comparatively few practitioners and no medical schools emphasizing this approach to therapeutics."
 * It goes on to cite the US FDA's position of official recognition without endorsement. Mkweise

 * Ah, I thought you had an electronic version. I still have a CD around here somewhere, but it doesn't work under Linux. I'd have to see the whole article to judge whether it puts the practice in its proper context. However, my experience with classical encyclopedias is that they have a tendency towards apologism when lobbies are involved, that's why I love Wikipedia. I should be able to come up with an intro summary that will make you happy, though. --Eloquence 22:06 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

 * Nope, just the 1982 dead tree edition. I can open it on *any* desktop, and it's a lot more stable than any Windows application will ever be. Mkweise 23:17 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

 * P.S. Your statement is very much akin to saying "I don't want to have to read all the way to the bottom of the article on Iraq to find out that the US Government considers it evil." Mkweise 19:45 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

 * I'm not interested in putting any claim like "Dr. Xy said homeopathy is evil nonsense" in the intro. But like an article about Iraq should mention the impending doom, an article about homeopathy (or in fact any remedy) should prominently mention the opinion of the scientific mainstream. --Eloquence 20:07 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

 * Pasting without comment: NPOV - Now an important qualification. Articles that compare views need not give minority views as much or as detailed a description as more popular views. We should not attempt to represent a dispute as if a view held by only a small minority of people deserved as much attention as a very popular view. That may be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. If we are to represent the dispute fairly, we should present various competing views in proportion to their representation among experts on the subject, or among the concerned parties. None of this, however, is to say that minority views cannot receive as much attention as we can possibly give them on pages specifically devoted to those views. There is no size limit to Wikipedia. But even on such pages, though the content of a view is spelled out possibly in great detail, we still make sure that the view is not represented as the truth.

 * Exactly. That homeopathy is a pseudoscience is hardly a minority view, esp. in the scientific community. --Eloquence 20:07 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

 * Re pasted text: I'd have put it quite differently myself, but if that's the official policy I can accept it.
 * What you seem to be forgetting, is that the subject of this article is homeopathy. Among experts in the field of homeopathy, the majority view is that homeopathy is an empirical science, the inner workings of which are as of yet unexplained by chemistry. The number of critics who have studied homeopathy closely enough to be considered experts is certainly minute, albeit vocal.
 * Let's just present both sides and let the reader make up his own mind, shall we? POV words like "pseudoscience", "quackery" or "bunk" (or "wonderful" or "excellent") have no place in encyclopedic writing, other than in specifically attributed quotations. Mkweise 23:17 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

 * By this reasoning, should Holocaust denial be written by experts in the field of holocaust denial, who hold as a majority view that the holocaust did not happen?

 * Not sure whether misquoted me intentionally or not, but generally as long as the author manages to write from a NPOV, it doesn't matter what his personal POV is. And yes, of course the bulk of an article titled Holocaust denial should be devoted to describing the Who/Where/When/Why/How of Holocaust denial - if I looked up an article by that title, that's what I'd be looking for.
 * A brief paragraph citing (or linking to) evidence to the contrary should follow. If that part went on and on for ten pages telling me things I already know, it would be wasting my time. Mkweise 02:10 Feb 21, 2003 (UTC)

 * The NPOV writeup guides us in balancing the points of view, but not as to which view should be presented first. Do we write an article that says "Homeopathy is believed by scientists to be quackery, supporters say it works" or do we say "Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine, scientists say it is quackery"?

Deleted some stuff and rephrased the rest. Some key notes:

which exempts most of the remedies used in classical homeopathy from rigorous testing on the grounds that they contain little or no active ingredients

Yes, homeopathic drugs are exempt from testing. Yes they contain no active ingredients. No, they are not exempt BECAUSE they contain no active ingredients.

 * However, this is from the FDA web page: "The reasoning behind [the difference] is that homeopathic products contain little or no active ingredients," explains Edward Miracco, a consumer safety officer with FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. "From a toxicity, poison-control standpoint, [the active ingredient and strength] was deemed to be unnecessary." Stephen C. Carlson

 * That statement is being read slightly out of context. Mr. Miracco was addressing the reasons for solid oral homeopathic drugs having different imprint standards than other drugs, but he wasn't making a blanket statement about the FDA's general approach to homeopathic drugs.  The "imprint" in question are the codes and symbols stamped onto a pill that are used primarily by poison control centers (see 21 CFR 206.10 for the specific requirement and homeopathic exemption).

 * Here is a little background on this. In 1994 the FDA proposed that all drugs in a solid oral form be imprinted with a code that would allow instant indentification of the drug.  This rule was supported by the conventional drug industry because several states had already passed similar laws, and the industry wanted one nationwide regulation instead of 50 different statutes.  The homeopathic drug makers resisted this regulation as being overburdensome.  Some small companies produce thousands and thousands of unique products and producing unique imprints was going to be expensive.  Because there is nothing in solid oral homeopathic drugs that could be considered an "active ingredient", and therefore no overdose (or drug interaction) risks, the FDA and the industry compromised on the current imprint that just identifies the drug as being homeopathic, and thereby lets the poison control workers ignore it.

 * I'll accept your clarification (see latest change to main article), but if you've got a clarification, just do it rather than delete it. Stephen C. Carlson

It is the homeopathic practitioner who makes health claims, not the manufacturer of the remedy.

Homeopathic drugs sold over the counter are REQUIRED to make specific health claims.

including herbal and pseudohomeopathic medications

What is "pseudohomeopathic" and who uses this phrase? Google gave zero hits on this word.

Stephen, maybe we can work out something here. This is your most recent version Homeopathic drugs do not have to list their active ingredients on the grounds that they have little or no active ingredients.

Please don't take me wrong, I agree completely with the statement that these substances contain little or no active ingredients. I'm just trying to make sure the FDA's position is accurately stated.

So, here we go... There are a whole bunch of substances that the FDA recognizes as "homeopathic drugs", mostly because there is a law that defines them as drugs. For clarity, let's call these (for now) "homeopathic ingredients". The FDA does require that homeopathic drugs sold over the counter have to list on their LABEL all their "homeopathic ingredients". What the FDA doesn't require is that the PILL ITSELF be stamped with symbols or codes that a pharmacist or poison control center could look up to figure out what the pill is.

So why I removed your above statement was that it implied that homeopathic drugs didn't have to list their contents, when in fact they do (even though they get to do it in their own "6X 100C" homeopathic language).

So... Is the point you are trying to insert in this statement simply that these substances contain no active ingredients, or are you trying to create some sort of cause and effect between having no active ingredients and some FDA action?

 * I'm trying to give a reason why the FDA treats medical and homeopathic drugs differently. Stephen C. Carlson

Hmmm... I think we can give that a go. You would probably have to start by considering that the FDA is a weird position. The Congress has passed laws that declare homeopathic medicines to legally be drugs, and those laws require the FDA to regulate homeopathic medicines. It wasn't the intent of congress to ban homeopathic medicines (considering that the author of the original laws was a homeopathic doctor). This kind of forces the FDA into having to treat homeopathic drugs differently, since if they applied the same rules that they do to conventional drugs, homeopathic drugs couldn't be sold. So pretty much every time the FDA makes a rule that (if applied) would ban homeopathic drugs, they carve out some sort of exemption for these substances. For example, "real drugs" are only allowed to be 10% alcohol (or 0.5% if intended for children). But the FDA doesn't apply this rule to homeopathic drugs (some of which are 90% alcohol) since it would in effect mean banning many of them. Another example, homeopathic drugs are exempt from being tested to insure content since chemically there might not even be one molocule left. For the most part, the FDA is content to ignore homeopathy as long as they don't do anything that could be a health risk and they don't do anything that is fraudulent. Other than that, people are free to believe in (and use) homeopathy, healing crystals, energy fields, magnetic bracelets, or whatever other "alternative medicine" they want. Anyhow, if and when I edit that paragraph again, I will try to hold onto the intent of what you have added.

 * Thanks for the explanation. The article can benefit from some discussion of the FDA's policy bind concerning homepathy, as you've insightfully done right here.  Stephen C. Carlson

Wow! Excellent! Very well done.

The fact, put bluntly: homeopathy doesn't work! Properly controlled studies show no effect at all other than at the placebo level. In a better world, this scam would be prosecuted as the fraud it is. Desertphile

If I overdose on homeopathic sleeping pills, will it keep me awake? Mintguy 09:43 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

 * All the jokes that you overdose homeopathic medicine by taking too little aside, possibly yes, it might keep you awake. Lactose is sugar, “a disaccharide consisting of two subunits, a galactose and a glucose linked together” (from the Lactose article) so depanding on your ability to metabolise lactose, it actually might help keeping you awake if you eat enough. Rafał Pocztarski 03:26, 5 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Homeopathy saved my life. A placebo cannot reverse the likes of what was happening to me. Sorry y'all think that's so crazy! --anon

 * Many people nowadays find it difficult to accept anything that cannot be explained to their satisfaction. But that is their problem, not yours. It is indisputable that anyone who has experienced homeopathy in action can't deny the results, regardless of whether or not the postulated mechanism conflicts with prior beliefs. Mkweise 21:16, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * I wonder if preparation has some kind of bearance on results. Hypothetically, say homoeopathy works, then what percentage of homoeopathy companies are producing dud remedies? Anyway, the power of a social group to hold opinions for less than healthy reasons should not be underestimated, such as the farse of dentists using mercury for the last 160 years while fanatically scorning the idea that it is harmful. Science is riddled with this kind of thing. Crusadeonilliteracy

Instead of devoting the entry on homeopathy to a discussion of how it must not exist, wouldn't a NPOV, scientifically-oriented article simply describe homeopathy as a hypothesis and note some evidence that supports, and some that does not support -- the hypothesis? It is factually incorrect to say, for example, that homeopathy has never been shown to work at all for anyone -- I know a midwife who has seen a homeopathic remedy placed on a blue newborn's tongue, followed immediately by the child turning a robust pink and quickly recovering. How does a scam artist get a placebo effect from a baby whose eyes haven't opened yet? And what could possibly be wrong with this mode of therapy if 1) nothing else is known to work, 2) it works, and 3) it's incredibly inexpensive? (I also myself am experiencing much greater health than I have had since my early youth as a result of homeopathic treatment.)

Homeopathy does exist, does work, and cannot be wished away simply because it doesn't seem to obey all of the rules that science has decided govern nature -- nature itself doesn't obey all the rules; ask an astronomer or particle physicist. If there's an observable phenomenon that seems to disagree with the current body of science knowledge, shouldn't we ask questions rather than use Wikipedia as a soapbox to declare that it Must Not Be So?

I think Wikipedia deserves a good discussion of what this hypothesis is. Follow it with acres of criticism if you must, but the current article is inexcusably biased. John Platte 21:53, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * John, the article does exactly what you ask -- it presents evidence from homeopaths as well as arguments from its critics. It links to pro-homeopathy and anti-homeopathy websites. What you seem to want, however, is for anecdotal stories like the above to make it into an article that should discuss verifiable facts. These anecdotal stories satisfy about the same scientific standard as the ones of the "I got healed by Jesus" type. Even if the story is true (for which there is no evidence), even if it is not just the placebo effect or coincidence of natural recovery, the main problem with such stories is that we do not know exactly what kind of "homeopathic" substance was used. Many practitioners of homeopathy mix its principles with traditional herbal medicine, which is a much more serious and more scientific undertaking. Now, without controlled double blind studies, how are we supposed to know whether the effect was caused by the supposedly "memorized" molecules or by an undisclosed substance which was part of the "homeopathic" remedy?

 * Homeopaths are not much different from religious believers. Their arguments are the same. We are supposed to accept on the basis of faith what science "cannot explain", without a scientifically consistent theory or verifiable evidence. As it stands, the evidence for homeopathy is as strong as the evidence for the existence of God: There is none.—Eloquence 22:04, Aug 11, 2003 (UTC)

 * John: Because two events are coincident does not imply that one is the cause of the other. You can find similar anecdotal "evidence" for practically anything if you wish, including monsters under the bed and Santa Claus. The simple bold facts are that there is not, and never has been a single shred of real evidence that in anyway whatsoever proves or even hints that homeopathy does or even might possibly have any effect whatsoever on human or animal physiology, other than the placebo effect. It's as simple as that. Mintguy 22:08, 11 Aug 2003 (UTC)

If homeopathy is 'rubbish' or is 'only placebo effect', why does it work in animals? I have also given it to two friends, without their knowledge, and observed in one a cure, and in the othera complete change of personality and lifestyle (10-15 cigars per day to ZERO in two days elapsed time??) How does the placebo theory fit here? Regardless of the subject matter, the various raving and rantings of the opponents who keep talking 'scientific theory' demonstrate the ideal that 'science', i.e. the 'knowledge that is named science' is complete and finite. Surely a 'real' scientist looks beyond what he/she reads in text books and looks for facts and reasons? This is summed up by the Nature magazine editioral headline about Beneviste's experiments 'when to believe the unbelievable'. Regardless of whether the experiments were valid we have a 'major' science journal offering protection and shelter for only what we know and ignoring the potential for what may be. Surely if something can't be measured the option that you are using the wrong ruler has to be a 50% chance. Isn't that scientific research, or is resting on laurels and degrees, and nice government grants more like it? -- If all it takes is a homeopathic pill or two to get someone to give up smoking, may i suggest that there are millions to be made in prescribing it to the wider public. Don't just stop at this article. Go for the millions.

Requests for comments on RK
Requests for comment/RK has been created as structured way to gather support in the Wikipedian community for action to be taken against user:RK for his consistent use of aggressive editing tactics that are counter productive to the development of high quality encyclopedic articles. Now, is your chance to voice your grievances against user:RK.

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license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Homeopathy/Archive 1


text:
Aurum

Aurum may refer to:

 * Aurum, the Latin word for gold and the source of its chemical symbol, "Au"
 * Aurum bikes, a Spanish bicycle manufacturer
 * Aurum (liqueur), an Italian liqueur
 * Aurum Geyser, in the Upper Geyser Basin of Yellowstone
 * Aurum, Nevada, a ghost town
 * Aurum Press, a defunct English publishing house, now part of The Quarto Group
 * Aurum (album), an album by Closterkeller
 * Aurum, an alien race in the video game Kid Icarus: Uprising

title: Aurum


text:
Jandek

Jandek is the musical project of Sterling Smith, a Houston, Texas-based American lo-fi folk singer. Since 1978, Jandek has independently released over 120 albums while granting an interview extremely rarely and providing no biographical information, releasing on a self-made label, "Corwood Industries". Jandek often plays an idiosyncratic and frequently atonal form of folk and blues music, frequently using an open and unconventional chord structure. AllMusic has described Jandek as "the most enigmatic figure in American music".

History
A review of the debut album Ready for the House (1978) in OP magazine, the first ever national press given to Jandek, referred to the artist as Sterling Smith. Smith has kept his personal history secret, revealing only one story about his pre-Corwood years: he wrote seven novels but burned them upon rejection from New York publishers.

In a 1985 private phone conversation with John Trubee for Spin, Smith mentioned that he was working at that time as a machinist.

Jandek's first album, Ready for the House, though a solo work, was originally credited to a band called The Units. Corwood was forced to change the name The Units by an identically named Californian group already in possession of a trademark on the name. All reissues of this first album and all subsequent Corwood releases have been credited to "Jandek". In Trubee's unauthorized interview, Smith claims he came up with the name Jandek while on the telephone with a person named Decker during the month of January. Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain discussed Jandek in a 1993 interview, stating "He's not pretentious, but only pretentious people like his music.

In 1999, Texas Monthly reporter Katy Vine interviewed a man she believed to be Jandek, though he refused to identify himself, and although familiar with Jandek's music, refused to discuss it. In 2003, filmmaker Chad Freidrichs released a documentary, Jandek on Corwood, which contained no interviews with Jandek but was put together with "a representative of Corwood Industries".

On October 17, 2004, at the Instal Festival in Glasgow, Scotland, an unannounced and unidentified act (playing alongside bassist Richard Youngs and drummer Alex Neilson) performed at the festival. This was later confirmed to be Jandek in his first live performance. Jandek has since made numerous live performances, usually unannounced in advance.

Discography
This is the discography of Corwood Industries; the record company releases only albums by Jandek.

 * 0739: Ready for the House (1978)
 * 0740: Six and Six (1981)
 * 0741: Later On (1981)
 * 0742: Chair Beside a Window (1982)
 * 0743: Living in a Moon So Blue (1982)
 * 0744: Staring at the Cellophane (1982)
 * 0745: Your Turn to Fall (1983)
 * 0746: The Rocks Crumble (1983)
 * 0747: Interstellar Discussion (1984)
 * 0748: Nine-Thirty (1985)
 * 0749: Foreign Keys (1985)
 * 0750: Telegraph Melts (1986)
 * 0751: Follow Your Footsteps (1986)
 * 0752: Modern Dances (1987)
 * 0753: Blue Corpse (1987)
 * 0754: You Walk Alone (1988)
 * 0755: On the Way (1988)
 * 0756: The Living End (1989)
 * 0757: Somebody in the Snow (1990)
 * 0758: One Foot in the North (1991)
 * 0759: Lost Cause (1992)
 * 0760: Twelfth Apostle (1993)
 * 0761: Graven Image (1994)
 * 0762: Glad to Get Away (1994)
 * 0763: White Box Requiem (1996)
 * 0764: I Woke Up (1997)
 * 0765: New Town (1998)
 * 0766: The Beginning (1999)
 * 0767: Put My Dream on This Planet (2000)
 * 0768: This Narrow Road (2001)
 * 0769: Worthless Recluse (2001)
 * 0770: I Threw You Away (2002)
 * 0771: The Humility of Pain (2002)
 * 0772: The Place (2003)
 * 0773: The Gone Wait (2003)
 * 0774: Shadow of Leaves (2004)
 * 0775: The End of It All (2004)
 * 0776: The Door Behind (2004)
 * 0777: A Kingdom He Likes (2004)
 * 0778: When I Took That Train (2005)
 * 0779: Glasgow Sunday (2005) (rec. October 17, 2004)
 * 0780: Raining Down Diamonds (2005)
 * 0781: Khartoum (2005)
 * 0782: Khartoum Variations (2006)
 * 0783: Newcastle Sunday (2006) 2CD (rec. May 22, 2005)
 * 0784: What Else Does the Time Mean? (2006)
 * 0785: Glasgow Monday (2006) 2CD (rec. May 23, 2005)
 * 0786: Austin Sunday (2006) 2CD (rec. August 28, 2005)
 * 0787: The Ruins of Adventure (2006)
 * 0788: Manhattan Tuesday (2007) 2CD (rec. September 6, 2005)
 * 0789: Brooklyn Wednesday (2007) 4CD (rec. September 7, 2005)
 * 0790: The Myth of Blue Icicles (2008)
 * 0791: Glasgow Friday (2008) (rec. October 14, 2005)
 * 0792: Glasgow Sunday 2005 (2008) (rec. October 16, 2005)
 * 0793: London Tuesday (2008) (rec. October 18, 2005)
 * 0794: Skirting the Edge (2008)
 * 0795: Hasselt Saturday (2009) (rec. November 12, 2005)
 * 0796: Helsinki Saturday (2009) (rec. November 19, 2005)
 * 0797: Not Hunting For Meaning (2009)
 * 0798: Portland Thursday (2009) 2CD (rec. April 20, 2006)
 * 0799: What Was Out There Disappeared (2009)
 * 0800: Camber Sands Sunday (2009) (rec. May 14, 2006)
 * 0801: Bristol Wednesday (2010) 2CD (rec. May 17, 2006)
 * 0802: Canticle of Castaway (2010)
 * 0803: Toronto Sunday (2010) 2CD (rec. September 17, 2006)
 * 0804: Chicago Wednesday (2010) 2CD (rec. September 20, 2006)
 * 0805: Where Do You Go From Here? (2011)
 * 0806: Seattle Friday (2011) 2CD (rec. October 27, 2006)
 * 0807: Indianapolis Saturday (2012) 2CD / (2023) DVD (rec. December 9, 2006)
 * 0808: Maze of the Phantom (2012) 2CD
 * 0809: Atlanta Saturday (2012) 2CD (rec. February 17, 2007)
 * 0810: Richmond Sunday (2012) 2CD (rec. March 11, 2007)
 * 0811: The Song of Morgan (2013) 9CD
 * 0812: Athens Saturday (2013) 2CD (rec. July 28, 2012)
 * 0813: Houston Saturday (2014) CD / (2022) DVD (rec. June 1, 2013)
 * 0814: Ghost Passing (2014) 6CD (rec. February 14, 2009)
 * 0815: Houston Saturday 2011 (2014) (rec. December 17, 2011)
 * 0816: St. Louis Friday (2015) DVD / (2015) 2CD (rec. March 21, 2014)
 * 0817: Brussels Saturday (2015) DVD / (2015) CD (rec. April 19, 2014)
 * 0818: Houston Thursday (2015) DVD / (2016) CD (rec. July 12, 2012)
 * 0819: Los Angeles Saturday (2015) DVD / (2021) CD (rec. May 24, 2014)
 * 0820: Dublin Friday (2016) CD / (2017) DVD (rec. June 13, 2008)
 * 0821: London Residency (2017) DVD / (2017) 6CD (rec. February 14–16, 2014)
 * 0822: New Orleans Monday (2016) CD / (2017) DVD (rec. March 16, 2009)
 * 0823: Austin Tuesday (2017) DVD / (2017) CD (rec. February 16, 2016)
 * 0824: Dallas Thursday (2017) CD / (2017) DVD (rec. May 19, 2016)
 * 0825: Houston Friday (2017) 2CD / (2017) DVD (rec. January 6, 2017)
 * 0826: San Francisco Friday (2018) 2CD / (2018) DVD (rec. October 9, 2015)
 * 0827: Hamman Hall (2018) 2CD / (2018) DVD (rec. April 21, 2017)
 * 0828: Houston Tuesday (2018) 2CD / (2018) DVD (rec. October 20, 2015)
 * 0829: Los Angeles Friday (2018) DVD / (2018) 2CD (rec. August 5, 2016)
 * 0830: London Thursday (2018) 2CD (rec. April 4, 2013)
 * 0831: Gainesville Monday (2019) DVD (Rec. December 1, 2008)
 * 0832: The Ray (2019) CD
 * 0833: Austin Sunday 2007 (2019) CD / (2019) DVD (rec. March 17, 2007)
 * 0834: Berlin Sunday (2020) DVD / (2020) CD (rec. November 12, 2017)
 * 0835: Manhattan Saturday (2020) 3CD / (2020) DVD (rec. April 14, 2007)
 * 0836: Boston Friday (2020) 2CD / (2022) DVD (rec. June 8, 2007)
 * 0837: Montreal Sunday (2020) 2CD / (2020) DVD (rec. June 24, 2007)
 * 0838: Fort Worth Saturday (2020) 2CD / (2020) DVD (rec. July 21, 2007)
 * 0839: Rudyard's (2020) DVD / (2020) CD (rec. April 5, 2009)
 * 0840: Grinnell Saturday (2020) 2CD (rec. October 6, 2007)
 * 0841: Amsterdam Saturday (2020) CD (rec. November 10, 2007)
 * 0842: Aarhus Sunday (2020) 2CD (rec. November 11, 2007)
 * 0843: San Francisco Saturday (2020) 2CD / (2021) DVD (rec. January 12, 2008)
 * 0844: Austin Saturday (2021) CD (rec. March 15, 2008)
 * 0845: Philadelphia Saturday (2021) 2CD / (2021) DVD (rec. April 12, 2008)
 * 0846: Ann Arbor Saturday (2021) 2CD (rec. May 17, 2008)
 * 0847: London Sunday (2021) 2CD / (2021) DVD (rec. June 15, 2008)
 * 0848: London Monday (2021) CD (rec. June 16, 2008)
 * 0849: Denver Friday (2021) DVD / (2021) 2CD (rec. July 25, 2008)
 * 0850: Columbus Friday (2021) 2CD (rec. October 10, 2008)
 * 0851: The Mountain Step (2021) CD
 * 0852: Porto Saturday (2021) 2CD (rec. January 10, 2009)
 * 0853: Chapel Hill Sunday (2022) 2CD / (2022) DVD (rec. February 22, 2009)
 * 0854: Motion Energy (2021) 2CD
 * 0855: Manhattan Thursday (2022) 2CD (rec. April 23, 2009)
 * 0856: Diverseworks (2022) 2CD / (2022) DVD (rec. May 3, 2009)
 * 0857: Northern Ireland July (2023) 5CD / 1DVD (rec. July 19-22, 2009)
 * 0858: The Wizards Hour (2023) CD (rec. September 5, 2009)
 * 0859: Brooklyn Sunday (2023) 2CD (rec. September 6, 2009)
 * 0860: Tilburg Saturday (2022) CD (rec. September 19, 2009)
 * 0862: Vienna Wednesday (2023) 2CD (rec. October 14, 2009)
 * 0863: Nashville Friday (2023) 2CD (rec. October 30, 2009)
 * 0864: Vision of Jewels (2023) CD
 * 0865: Baltimore Saturday (2023) 2CD (rec. November 14, 2009)

title: Jandek


text:
Man with a Movie Camera

Man with a Movie Camera (Человек с киноаппаратом) is an experimental 1929 Soviet silent documentary film, directed by Dziga Vertov, filmed by his brother Mikhail Kaufman, and edited by Vertov's wife Yelizaveta Svilova. Kaufman also appears as the eponymous Man of the film.

Vertov's feature film, produced by the film studio All-Ukrainian Photo Cinema Administration (VUFKU), presents urban life in Moscow, Kiev and Odessa during the late 1920s. It has no actors. From dawn to dusk Soviet citizens are shown at work and at play, and interacting with the machinery of modern life. To the extent that it can be said to have "characters", they are the cameramen of the title, the film editor, and the modern Soviet Union they discover and present in the film.

Man with a Movie Camera is famous for the range of cinematic techniques Vertov invented, employed or developed, such as multiple exposure, fast motion, slow motion, freeze frames, match cuts, jump cuts, split screens, Dutch angles, extreme close-ups, tracking shots, reversed footage, stop motion animations and self-reflexive visuals (at one point it features a split-screen tracking shot; the sides have opposite Dutch angles).

Man with a Movie Camera was largely dismissed upon its initial release; the work's fast cutting, self-reflexivity, and emphasis on form over content were all subjects of criticism. In the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound poll, however, film critics voted it the 8th greatest film ever made, the 9th greatest in the 2022 poll, and in 2014 it was named the best documentary of all time in the same magazine. The National Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Centre placed it in 2021 at number three of their list of the 100 best films in the history of Ukrainian cinema.

In 2015, the film received a restoration using a 35mm print of the only known complete cut of the film. Restoration efforts were conducted by the EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam, with additional digital work by Lobster Films. While the film is in the public domain, this restored version was licensed to Flicker Alley for release on Blu-ray.

Overview
The film is divided into six separate parts, one for each film reel on which it would have originally been printed. Each part begins with a number appearing on screen and falling down flat. The film makes use of many editing techniques, such as superimposition, slow motion, fast motion, rapid cross-cutting, and montage.

The film has an unabashedly avant-garde style, and the subject matter varies greatly. The titular man with the movie camera (Mikhail Kaufman, Vertov's brother) travels to diverse locations to capture a variety of shots. He appears in artistic images such as a superimposed shot of the cameraman setting up his camera atop a second, mountainous camera, and another superimposed shot of the cameraman inside a beer glass. General images include laborers at work, sporting events, couples getting married and divorced, a woman giving birth, and a funeral procession. Much of the film is concerned with people of varying economic classes navigating urban environments. On occasion, the film's editor (Svilova) is shown working with strips of film and various pieces of editing equipment.

Despite claiming to be without actors, the film features a few staged situations. This includes some of the cameraman's actions, the scene of a woman getting dressed, and chess pieces being swept to the center of the board (a shot spliced in backwards so the pieces expand outward and stand in position). Stop-motion is used for several shots, including an unmanned camera on a tripod standing up, showing off its mechanical parts, and then walking off screen.

Vertov's intentions
Vertov was an early pioneer in documentary film-making during the late 1920s. He belonged to a movement of filmmakers known as the kinoks, or kino-oki (kino-eyes). Vertov, along with other kino artists declared it their mission to abolish all non-documentary styles of film-making, a radical approach to movie making. Most of Vertov's films were highly controversial, and the kinok movement was despised by many filmmakers.

Vertov's crowning achievement, Man with a Movie Camera, was his response to critics who rejected his previous film, A Sixth Part of the World. Critics had declared that Vertov's overuse of "intertitles" was inconsistent with the film-making style to which the "kinoks" subscribed. Working within that context, Vertov dealt with a lot of fear in anticipation of the film's release. He requested a warning to be printed in the Soviet central Communist newspaper Pravda, which spoke directly of the film's experimental, controversial nature. Vertov was worried that the film would be either destroyed or ignored by the public. Upon the official release of Man with a Movie Camera, Vertov issued a statement at the beginning of the film, which read: The film Man with a Movie Camera represents

AN EXPERIMENTATION IN THE CINEMATIC COMMUNICATION

Of visual phenomena

WITHOUT THE USE OF INTERTITLES

(a film without intertitles)

WITHOUT THE HELP OF A SCENARIO

(a film without a scenario)

WITHOUT THE HELP OF THEATRE

(a film without actors, without sets, etc.)

This new experimentation work by Kino-Eye is directed towards the creation of an authentically international absolute language of cinema on the basis of its complete separation from the language of theatre and literature.

This manifesto echoes an earlier one that Vertov wrote in 1922, in which he disavowed popular films he felt were indebted to literature and theater.

Stylistic aspects
Working within a Marxist ideology, Vertov strove to create a futuristic city that would serve as a commentary on existing ideals in the Soviet world. This artificial city's purpose was to awaken the Soviet citizen through truth and to ultimately bring about understanding and action. The kino's aesthetic shone through in his portrayal of electrification, industrialization, and the achievements of workers through hard labor. This film is in keeping with modernist thoughts in how it challenges art both conceptually and in practice, incorporating industrial life and technology as featured subjects of the film and implementing new editing techniques. In utilizing these techniques, the artist creates a modern interpretation of city life.

Some have mistakenly stated that many visual ideas, such as the quick editing, the close-ups of machinery, the store window displays, even the shots of a typewriter keyboard are borrowed from Walter Ruttmann's Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927), which predates Man with a Movie Camera by two years, but as Vertov wrote to the German press in 1929, these techniques and images had been developed and employed by him in his Kino-Pravda newsreels and documentaries during the previous ten years, all of which predate Berlin. Vertov's pioneering cinematic concepts actually inspired other abstract films by Ruttmann and others, including writer, translator, filmmaker and critic Liu Na'ou (1905–1940), whose The Man Who Has a Camera (1933) pays explicit homage to Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera.

Man with a Movie Camera's usage of double exposure and seemingly "hidden" cameras made the movie come across as a surreal montage rather than a linear motion picture. Many of the scenes in the film contain people, which change size or appear underneath other objects (double exposure). Because of these aspects, the movie is fast-moving. The sequences and close-ups capture emotional qualities that could not be fully portrayed through the use of words. The film's lack of "actors" and "sets" makes for a unique view of the everyday world; one that, according to a title card, is directed toward the creation of a new cinematic language that is "[separated] from the language of theatre and literature".

Production
It was filmed over a period of about three years. Four cities – Moscow, Kiev, Kharkov and Odessa – were the shooting locations.

Initial
Man with a Movie Camera was not always a highly regarded work. The film was criticized for both the stagings and the stark experimentation, possibly as a result of its director's frequent assailing of fiction film as a new "opiate of the masses".

Vertov's Soviet contemporaries criticized its focus on form over content, with Sergei Eisenstein even deriding the film as "pointless camera hooliganism". The work was largely dismissed in the West as well. Documentary filmmaker Paul Rotha said that in Britain, Vertov was "regarded really as rather a joke, you know. All this cutting, and one camera photographing another camera – it was all trickery, and we didn't take it seriously." The pace of the film's editing – more than four times faster than a typical 1929 feature, with approximately 1,775 separate shots – also perturbed some viewers, including The New York Times' reviewer Mordaunt Hall: "The producer, Dziga Vertov, does not take into consideration the fact that the human eye fixes for a certain space of time that which holds the attention."

Re-evaluation
Man with a Movie Camera is now regarded by many as one of the greatest films ever made, ranking 9th in the 2022 Sight & Sound poll of the world's best films. In 2009, Roger Ebert wrote: "It made explicit and poetic the astonishing gift the cinema made possible, of arranging what we see, ordering it, imposing a rhythm and language on it, and transcending it." The National Oleksandr Dovzhenko Film Centre placed it in 2021 at number three of their list of the 100 best films in the history of Ukrainian cinema.

Analysis
Man with a Movie Camera has been interpreted as an optimistic work. Jonathan Romney called it "an exuberant manifesto that celebrates the infinite possibilities of what cinema can be". Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian wrote that the work "is visibly excited about the new medium's possibility, dense with ideas, packed with energy: it echoes Un Chien Andalou, anticipates Vigo's À propos de Nice and the New Wave generally, and even Riefenstahl's Olympia".

Soundtracks
The film, originally released in 1929, was silent and accompanied in theaters with live music. It has since been released a number of times with different soundtracks:
 * 1983 – A new composition was performed by Un Drame Musical Instantané, based on Vertov's writings, among which was his Ear Laboratory. Electronic sounds, ambiences, voices were mixed to the 15-piece orchestra. An LP was issued in 1984 on Grrr Records.
 * 1993 – French composer Pierre Henry, known as a pioneer of musique concrète, created a soundtrack for the film.
 * 1995 – A new composition was performed by the Alloy Orchestra of Cambridge, Massachusetts, based on notes left by Vertov. It incorporates sound effects such as sirens, babies crying, crowd noise, etc. Readily available on several different DVD versions.
 * 1996 – Norwegian composer Geir Jenssen (aka Biosphere) was commissioned by the Tromsø International Film Festival to write a new soundtrack for the movie, using the director's written instructions for the original accompanying piano player. Jenssen wrote half of the soundtrack, turning the other half to Per Martinsen (aka Mental Overdrive). It was used for the Norwegian version Mannen med filmkameraet at the 1996 TIFF. This version of the film has not been re-released elsewhere, but the soundtrack was released separately with Jenssen's contributions on Substrata 2 in 2001 and Martinsen's on an album of the same name in 2012.
 * 1999 – In the Nursery band made a version, for the Bradford International Film Festival. Currently available on some DVD versions, often paired with the Alloy Orchestra score as an alternate soundtrack.
 * 2001 – Steve Jansen and Claudio Chianura recorded a live soundtrack for a showing of the film at the Palazzina Liberty, in Milan on 11 December 1999. This was subsequently released on CD as the album Kinoapparatom in 2001.
 * 2002 – A version was released with a soundtrack composed by Jason Swinscoe and performed by the British jazz and electronic outfit The Cinematic Orchestra (see Man with a Movie Camera (The Cinematic Orchestra album)). Originally made for the Porto 2000 Film Festival. It was also released on DVD in limited numbers by Ninja Tune.
 * 2002 – A score for the film by Michael Nyman was premiered performed by the Michael Nyman Band on 17 May 2002 at London's Royal Festival Hall. A British Film Institute DVD of the film was released with Nyman's score. This score is readily available on several different DVD editions. It has not been issued on CD, but some of the score is reworked from material Nyman wrote for the Sega Saturn video game Enemy Zero, which had a limited CD release, and Nyman performs a brief excerpt "Odessa Beach" on his album The Piano Sings.
 * 2003 June – American multi-theremin ensemble The Lothars performed a semi-improvised soundtrack accompanying a screening of the film at the Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, Massachusetts. They repeated their performance three years later, in December 2006 at the Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn, New York.
 * 2006 Absolut Medien, Berlin, released a DVD with the 3 soundtracks from Michael Nyman, In the nursery, and a new soundtrack from Werner Cee.
 * November 2007 – France based group Art Zoyd presented a scenic version of the film with an additional video by artist Cecile Babiole. A studio recording of the soundtrack was released on CD in 2012.
 * 2008 – Norwegian electronic jazz trio Halt the Flux performed their interpretation of the soundtrack at the Bergen International Film Festival.
 * October 2008 – London based Cinematic Orchestra undertook a show featuring a screening of Vertov's film, which preceded the re-issue of the Man With A Movie Camera DVD, in November.
 * 30 November 2008 – American Tricks of the Light Orchestra accompanied a screening of the film on Sunday at Brainwash Cafe in San Francisco.
 * July 2009; Mexican composer Alex Otaola performed a new soundtrack live at Mexico's National Cinematheque, aided by the "Ensamble de Cámara/Acción".
 * 2009 – The American Voxare String Quartet performed music by Soviet Modernist composers to accompany a screening of the film.
 * August 2010 – Irish instrumental post-rock band 3epkano accompanied a screening of the film with an original live soundtrack in Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin
 * July 2010 – Ukrainian guitarist and composer Vitaliy Tkachuk performed his own soundtrack for the film, with his quartet, at a Ukrainian silent cinema festival "Mute Nights" in Odesa, the city where this movie was made.
 * 20 May 2011: The French pianist Yann Le Long, the violoncellist Philippe Cusson and the percussionist Stéphane Grimalt performed, for the first time, the soundtrack written by Le Long for the film at the Centre Culturel du Vieux Couvent, Muzillac, France.
 * March 2014: Sarodist, beat maker, and multi-instrumentalist composer James Whetzel performed live a 51-piece new all-original soundtrack to Man with a Movie Camera at SIFF Cinema Uptown in Seattle, WA, USA. Soundtrack features sarod, electric sarod, analog synthesizers, accordion, mandolin, bass, guitar, dhol, dholak, darbouka, bendir, rumba box, electronic drums, and 41 other pieces of percussion. Whetzel successfully completed a Kickstarter project for the soundtrack in July.
 * 2014 – Spanish band Caspervek Trio premiered a new soundtrack for the film at La Galería Jazz Club, Vigo, with further performances in Gijón, Ourense and Sigulda (Latvia).
 * September 2014: Swedish indie rock band bob hund premiered a new soundtrack at Cinemateket in Stockholm, with subsequent performances in Helsinki, Luleå, Gothenburg and Malmö.
 * 2016 – Donald Sosin, John Davis and others performed their collaborative score at the Museum of the Moving Image, Astoria, New York.
 * 2022 – SilentFilmDJ D'dread performed a live DJ Set to a AI colored version of the film for at.tension Festival, Lärz, Germany. The film with the DJ Soundtrack is released via YouTube
 * 2022 - Austin based indie chamber music group Montopolis is currently touring performing a new live score to accompany the film.
 * 2024 - Los Angeles composer, Alexander Tovar, conducted a sold out performance at the Cats Crawl in East Hollywood with the Orchid Quartet Collective with Michael Sobie scored for piano quintet.

title: Man with a Movie Camera


text:
Talk:Man with a Movie Camera

Untitled
IMHO all film buffs should see this--but the newer version with Vertov's music is much better than the pre-1996 one with the other soundtrack. Koyaanis Qatsi 06:29 Feb 20, 2003 (UTC)

It's bugging me about the paragraph I have on the cinema techniques. I know Vertov didn't originate all of these, and maybe not any of them; I just want to emphasize that the film was heavily experimental, and that these effects are not at all new, as many people today seem to think. Can anyone nail down the first known incidences of some of these effects--e.g. split screen, freeze frame, Dutch angle--or point me to where I can find out? Thanks, Koyaanis Qatsi

Wow, I didn't know about the 2002 version with the (yet newer) new soundtrack. I'll have to look for that one. I've seen the other two, and IMO the 2nd version with the soundtrack based in Vertov's notes is far superior. Koyaanis Qatsi 20:22 18 Jun 2003 (UTC)
 * I think the The Cinematic Orchestra version should be released on DVD in the next few weeks. You can probably get it/preorder via Ninja Tunes.  By the way, I am not in anyway affilated with the label or band. Lexor 09:32 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Bold text I think that it is amazing what the filmmaker do in 1929 without all the effects that we have now. Of course it's an art of his time

Erm, isn't this actually called 'Man with a movie camera'? At least, that's the name on my bfi Michael Nyman DVD Rlongstaff

 * It's called both. My DVD has it "the," not that any DVD is the final authority.  Koyaanis Qatsi 19:56, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

There are no definitive articles in Russian or Ukrainian which is why the title varies in translation. Richerboss (talk) 20:36, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Soundtrack/DVD versions
I'm going to try and cataloque all the different soundtrack/DVD versions that are available right now, as there seen to be quite a lot. I'm not sure which one to buy myself. Any help that you can give is appreciated! I'm interested in that "pre-1996 score" that was mentioned earlier on this page as well. Esn 09:01, 25 April 2006 (UTC) I made a soundtrack of 'Man with a Movie Camera' for the BFI in 1981. An experimental music/audio fusion, it accompanied screenings of the film as a separate tape. It was never married to a print, but retains a loyal following. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.26.123.226 (talk) 13:21, 11 August 2019 (UTC)

Copyright
The screenshots have a mix of copyrights... I think it would be useful to clarify why this film is public domain. For Russia public domain is, according to Template:PD-Russia, published before Jan 1, 1954 and the creator died before then too. Vertov died later in 1954. So, is this really public domain? 128.175.83.175 16:22, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * What about the sentence "Works belonging to the former Soviet government or other Soviet legal entities published before January 1st, 1954, are also public domain in Russia"? According to IMDB, it was produced by VUFKU.  weren't almost all film companies throughout the USSR's history owned by the government?  I know that in the late 1980s (perestroika) some privately-owned ones were founded, but I'm not sure what the situation was in the 1920s. Esn 21:41, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

The copyright versions are those with a specially composed score or the 2014 restored version by Lobster Films and Eye Film Institute. Richerboss (talk) 20:39, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

Credts
The box on the right side of the page credits Mikhail Kaufman as the cinematographer, but he actally plays the cameraman whom we see on camera, according to '''Michael O'Pray. Avant-Garde Film: Forms, Themes and Passions. Wallflower Press, London. 2003. ISBN 1 03364 56 6.''' I can't say who the actual cinematographer is. Probably Vertov himself. ralphy512 16:42, 19 August 2008

Mikhail Kaufman was the cinematographer, ie collaborated with his brother in the creative aspects of the film, and he also filmed the parts of Man with a Movie Camera where he was not on screen. Various other cameramen were involved – Boris Tseitlin (‘The Eleventh Year’ scenes used in the film, except those of the Volkhov Dam taken by Konstantin Kuliaev) and Georgii Nikolaevich Khimchenko for all the new scenes shot during 1928. Richerboss (talk) 20:45, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

cinematographer
the cinematographer is not Kaufman, or better, Kaufman is Vertov, he changed his name for an artistic mean. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fravo93 (talk • contribs) 21:18, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the identity of Kaufman/Vertov is dealt with by following the wikilink to Vertov. sinarau (talk) 10:14, 2 April 2015 (UTC)

The cinematographer was Mikhail Kaufman, he is credited in the film title as 'operator' which means cinematographer in Russian. He also filmed the parts of MwaMC when he was not on the screen. Various other cameramen were involved – Boris Tseitlin (‘The Eleventh Year’ scenes used in the film, except those of the Volkhov Dam taken by Konstantin Kuliaev) and Georgii Nikolaevich Khimchenko for all the new scenes shot during 1928 Richerboss (talk) 20:48, 1 August 2021 (UTC)

citation, citation, citation
This whole article is ridiculous. Someone clearly wrote large sections and included next-to-no citations whatsoever. There are no references, but statements that have clearly been taken from somewhere. If you put in information from your opinion, then remove it; if you put in information from a source, then bloody reference it. If references aren't put in soon then I shall just delete the offending articles.

195.195.81.209 (talk) 16:00, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

On this subject--requests for citations--I notice that "citation needed" has been inserted after the quotation that ends the subsection "Initial" under the heading "Reception." But the quotation is taken from a passage earlier in the article, where it is clearly identified as coming from the title at the beginning of the film itself. Any reader who has been reading the article with reasonable attention knows the source of this quotation.Alostlady (talk) 05:11, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Thanks for notifying us, Alostlady. You are correct. However, the quotation of the film is ostensibly from a different translation than the quotation of the same title card earlier in the article, as the wording is different. AndrewOne (talk) 14:06, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

Which cities ?
So is it Odessa, Kharkiv and Kiev, as stated in the introduction, or Moscow, Odessa and Kiev, as stated later on in the article? 213.119.26.53 (talk) 01:03, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Earlier version of the page, had this in the introduction: "... presents urban life in Odessa and other Soviet cities ..."
 * The introduction was altered recently, in [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Man_with_a_Movie_Camera&diff=559306317&oldid=550103356 this edit] to include the other 2 names.
 * The "Production" section was [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Man_with_a_Movie_Camera&diff=510117778&oldid=510116403 added here]
 * I haven't been able to find any reliable references via a brief google. I'll tag both instances as [citation needed], for now. Hopefully someone else can dig further. –Quiddity (talk) 17:04, 7 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Source for Moscow found (with help from a friend), but still hunting for a RSource for Kharkiv. –Quiddity (talk) 03:58, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

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title: Talk:Man with a Movie Camera


text:
Lucian Pulvermacher

Lucian Pulvermacher (born Earl Pulvermacher, 20 April 1918 – 30 November 2009) was a traditionalist schismatic Roman Catholic priest and a modern-day antipope. He was the head of the True Catholic Church, a small conclavist group that elected him Pope Pius XIII  in Montana in October 1998. At the time of his death, he lived in Springdale, Washington, United States.

Early life
Born on April 20, 1918, in Rock, Wisconsin, near Marshfield, Earl Pulvermacher was one of nine children of a farm family. His three brothers (Robert, Omer, and Gerald) also became priests in the Capuchin Order.

Capuchin friar
In 1942, at the age of 24, he joined the Capuchin Order, taking the religious name Lucian. He was subsequently ordained to the priesthood on June 5, 1946. At first he was posted to a parish in Milwaukee, but in 1948 he was sent to the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. He spent the greater part of his career as a Capuchin (from 1948 to 1970) in the Ryukyu Islands, including Okinawa. In 1970, he was transferred from Japan to Queensland in Australia, where he continued his missionary work until his disillusionment with the changes that followed the Second Vatican Council of 1962–1965.

Traditionalist ministry
In January 1976 he left the Capuchin Order and returned to the United States to join forces with traditionalist priest Conrad Altenbach in Milwaukee. "I was without money," he later remembered, "without a home or anything. The few things I brought along with me I could carry in two bags." He left what he called "the Novus Ordo, bogus Council Vatican II Church" and began to collaborate with the Society of Saint Pius X, which rejected Vatican II, until he distanced himself from them as he adopted more extreme sedevacantist views. He later wrote that he had spent eight months "with the general Latin Mass traditionalists until I saw there was no unity. Hence, I am alone on the job here in the States since August 1976."

From 1976 on, Pulvermacher lived with his parents in Pittsville, Wisconsin, celebrating Mass in the traditional rite in private chapels, until 1992, when he moved his ministry to Antigo, Wisconsin. By 1995 he had adopted conclavist views. In 1998 he moved to Kalispell, Montana, invited to say Mass in a chapel there.

In October 1998 a group of sedevacantist lay Catholics met in Kalispell, constituting a conclave for a papal election. They elected him, and he adopted the title of "Pope Pius XIII". From Montana he issued statements, appointed advisors as cardinals, and performed ordination rites. After 2005, he made no more public statements as his health declined.

Pulvermacher died on November 30, 2009.

Holy Orders
Pulvermacher claimed that by becoming Pope, he would become able to confer the Sacrament of Holy Orders despite not actually being consecrated a bishop before. He then ordained Gordon Bateman on June 13, 1999 and eventually consecrated him a bishop on June 20, 1999. After this, Bateman consecrated Pulvermacher on July 4, 1999. Although Pulvermacher and Bateman claimed to be bishops, no other religion with apostolic succession has recognized them as such.

title: Lucian Pulvermacher