Whenever people discuss homeopathy, they always point out how little of (or none of) a substance is in it. What they hardly ever discuss is the part that drives people insane:
Magic? Yes. Homoeopathy is based –in part– on the idea of the Vital Force, a my(s)thical force that is supposed to be in all of us. According to Samuel Hahnemann, the man who created homoeopathy, his highly diluted products serve to coax the Vital Force (which is thought to be powerful but not very intelligent) into attacking the disease.
Part of homoeopathy is also the concept of miasms, a type of fundamental cause of disease, of which the psora (itch) is the most important one. This magical thinking is also why some people call homoeopathy a religion or a cult. As a result, reading what homoeopaths are being "taught" is not unlike returning to the Dark Ages.
Or do you think believers are going batshit crazy, demanding watered-down water, because they think that water - alone - is what "works"?
Sure.
Long story-short:
Homeopathy is a psychological problem - a cult obsession - not one of medicine or science.
Remember, the other day, we were talking about how Oprah's exploited Jon Stewart's "Rally For Sanity" event? Well, we've found another story about how some low-level NewAge bullshitters are exploiting (and making fools of) Major League Baseball players, too. Now, if All-American Mom and Apple Pie Major League Baseball is gullible enough (or - being jocks - stupid enough) to fall for this, what hope is there for a really snotty blog to make a dent in anything, but possibly certain individual's lives?
Plus skeptics tried it in England (no media outlet covered the story in America) and Britain's NHS got away with saying, essentially, "Fuck you, the NewAgers are paying, so bugger off!" and that was the end of that.
And we are unmoved by any of it. Except, if that's how they want to play it, to feeling a little bit more content with the idea of anomie. But - to anyone thinking that's a wrong reaction to have - don't forget, in truth, it's the only "normal" reaction a human being could have. From the blurb on Harry G. Frankfurt's "On Bullshit":
One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."
Frankfurt, one of the world's most influential moral philosophers, attempts to build such a theory here. With his characteristic combination of philosophical acuity, psychological insight, and wry humor, Frankfurt proceeds by exploring how bullshit and the related concept of humbug are distinct from lying. He argues that bullshitters misrepresent themselves to their audience not as liars do, that is, by deliberately making false claims about what is true. In fact, bullshit need not be untrue at all.
Rather, bullshitters seek to convey a certain impression of themselves without being concerned about whether anything at all is true. They quietly change the rules governing their end of the conversation so that claims about truth and falsity are irrelevant. Frankfurt concludes that although bullshit can take many innocent forms, excessive indulgence in it can eventually undermine the practitioner's capacity to tell the truth in a way that lying does not. Liars at least acknowledge that it matters what is true. By virtue of this, Frankfurt writes, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are.
Is it "normal" not to address (or to pretend not to see) "one of the most salient features of our culture", though recognizing it's "a greater enemy of the truth"?
You've got to love when the obvious becomes undeniable:
According to The Daily Mail, scientists may have come up with a cure for malaria - isn't that great?
But wait - wasn't Homeopathy, originally, the supposed cure for malaria? Wasn't malaria, in fact, the very first disease Samuel Hahnemann (above) claimed to have used his now-famous water cure to defeat? If so, then, why is there a need for another? It's because, clearly, Homeopathy doesn't / can't / won't / is impossible to work. The only mystery is how the lie that water cures malaria - or anything else - ever lasted 200 years.
Of course, if you're paying attention, you already know that Homeopaths are using that lie to kill people - especially but not exclusively - in Africa, where they suspect authorities aren't paying close attention to what they're doing,...and, I might add, doing for money. (Or because they're racists. You can debate that one for yourselves,...)
World-wide Homeopathy is NewAge's equivalent to the nasty phrase "Big Pharma", except practitioners of this so-called "energy medicine" cure no one, and take lives instead of saving them. The latest incident making the news is from Japan, where doctors have kicked the bogus belief system to the curb after the death of a baby. (Children are especially vulnerable, because parents buy into the claim that Homeopathic preparations have "no side effects", without considering the treatment also contains no active ingredients. In other words, Homeopaths use a parent's obvious concern against them, to kill their kids.) We saw this same scenario play out, most famously, in the Thomas Sam case.
So what are Homeopath's going to say in light of this potential malaria cure? That Samuel Hahnemann was wrong? They can't say that because - since malaria was the very first specific ailment Homeopathy was designed to cure - it would prove the whole theory behind it - AKA "like cures like" - was (at best) a mistake or (at worst) a lie. Just like the entire NewAge outlook.
The truth is, as always, what the Homeopathic "community" is going to say about any challenge to their lies is,...nothing. Zip. Nada. They'll continue to ignore the obvious in favor of peddling their nonsense to NewAgers too gullible to think clearly because - let's face it - that's where the profits are.
And profits - not prophets - have always been what the scam of NewAge was about.
"It should come as no surprise that a strong advocate of a religion like homeopathy would have difficulty constructing a logical argument; the acceptance of logical arguments would lead to the rejection of his religion, and,...that is clearly unacceptable."
-- PalMD, still kicking Samuel Hahneman's dead "cult" horse - until the rest of you decide to get off your asses and pull the fucking wagon yourselves - because it's the only way we're gonna get anywhere, with The White Coat Underground.
"Malaria is spread by mosquitoes. I brought some. Here I'll let them roam around. There is no reason only poor people should be infected."
-- Bill Gates, scaring everyone at the hoity-toity TED Conference to make a point about the deadly disease - the same disease Samuel Hahnemann claimed homeopathy was a cure for - as reported by FOX News.
"Any reasonable person looking at the many tests that have been conducted to test the weird claims made ever since Samuel Hahnemann came up with this idea back in 1792, would immediately see that the 'art' is simply imaginary,...it takes a totally delusional mind to still think that there's anything there to be found."
-- James Randi, saying homeopaths are "all deluded," on the JREF.
In a typical essay showing all the myriad ways homeopathy goes wrong, the usual suspects are displayed: the theory behind it doesn’t make sense, water doesn’t have memory, diluting medicine actually makes it weaker, and all that.
But you don’t need to go into all that detail. Why not? Because homeopathy is self-denying!
Just look at it this way:
If homeopathy works, then obviously the less you use it, the stronger it gets. So the best way to apply homeopathy is to not use it at all.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Still, homeopaths tend to be immune to logic and reason (ironically, proving homeopathy at least in principle: the less likely you are to ask for scientific evidence to support it, the stronger homeopathological evidence gets).
So we need a practical application, a way to stop homeopathy practitioners cold. And I think I have it.
The next time you meet one, ask them what they do when they get thirsty.
If they really believe homeopathy, then within days all the homeopaths will be gone, deceased due to diligently dogmatic dehydration.
And the beauty of it?
According to their own logic, once all the homeopaths are gone, they will have reached maximum strength.
They win, we win, medicine wins, logic wins. Everyone wins.
Well, technically, they don’t win, being dead and all. But they made their point! I think.
Anyway, spread the word! And if you’re a homeopath, then it’s your duty to link to this very blog post: according to your own tenets, the more it gets out there, the weaker it is! So submit it to Digg, submit it to Fark, put it on Slashdot, and Boing Boing, and Neatorama. Get millions of people to visit this page. It’s the only way to stop skepticism!"
-- Phil Plait putting Samuel Hahnemann's "logic" to good use, which he surely got from Bad Astronomy.
"I've never been able to understand advocates of homeopathy. I just have difficulty understanding how otherwise intelligent people can fall for the bad science, the logical fallacies, and the magical thinking necessary to believe that homeopathy is anything other than glorified water, an elaborate, ritualized placebo."
-- Orac, of the medical/science blog, Respectful Insolence.
Check it out, numbnuts:
Cult: Homeopathy
Founder or Leader: Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (photo)
True Believers and Followers: Melanie Hahnemann, Past and Present Practitioners
Whenever people discuss homeopathy, they always point out how little of (or none of) a substance is in it. What they hardly ever discuss is the part that drives people insane:
