Why is Homeopathy such a crap?

Well, I am feeling a bit weak today, so much work, or perhaps my new-born baby is making me sleep lot less than before, maybe I should stop by the homeopathic pharmacy, they must have something that could help me more than conventional medicine, after all, all those big pharmaceutical companies are just after my money, and homeopathy is nature right? I hear my grandpa saying it could even cure cancer, so I guess a tiny headache should be no challenge for this amazing natural science........... except of course, we are not talking about science at all but rather about pseudo-science. Actually of all the stupid "alternative medicine" (as if that term would hold any validity) homeopathy is in the number one stupidity-spot for the majority of REAL conventional medicine practitioners. You might say I am too harsh on the term, after all, what harm could it do to anyone right? Well, actually there are more implications than what you might think.

But let's give a bit of background as always. Homeopathy was first formulated at the end of the 1700s by a German physician named Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843). The word "homeopathy" comes from the Greek "homoios" (similar) and "pathos" (suffering or disease). Hahnemann was concerned about the medical practices of his time which were in turn doing more harm than good. These practices included bloodletting, bleeching, purging, etc. He thought those treatments were intended to balance the body "humors" by inducing opposite effects, so he came up with the idea of a "law" called the "law of similars". The idea was basically that any disease could be cured by administering extremely small amounts of substances that produce similar symptoms in healthy people when administered in larger amounts.

Hahnemann and his early followers carried out a series of "studies" where they administered to themselves and to other healthy people different herbs, minerals, etc, and took notes of the effects produced. Hahnemann believed that diseases were only obstructing the body's own capabilities to heal itself and that with only small stimulus a healing process could be started. He also claimed that chronic diseases were manifestations of a suppressed itch (psora), which meant a form of evil spirit. This already starts sounding like no-sense to me, but there is more.

He began by using smaller amounts of accepted medications until he started diluting substances massively thinking that the more diluted, the bigger the effect, which is of course a non sequitur. These logical fallacy is called the "law of infinitesimals" and goes against everything scientific medicine has demonstrated.

Homeopathic remedies do not come from modern scientific testing but rather from old (1800s) "provings" of thousands of substances that do not even identify themselves with particular symptoms or diseases, that is decided by the homeopath or manufacturer. Substances can be sometimes sooooo diluted that what they are basically giving you is water, along with the magical natural-remedy idea, something like a placebo. For instance, there are substances labeled as 30X. This means that the original substance has been diluted 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times. Assuming that a cubic centimeter of water contains 15 drops, this number is greater than the number of drops of water that would fill a container more than 50 times the size of the Earth (www.quackwatch.org). Does this really sound logic?

Homeopathy worked well back then because it was actually less dangerous than the medical prescriptions of the time. As medical science advance, more and more people started abandoning the idea until almost 100 years ago, the last Homeopathy school closed its doors in the U.S.

Moreover, there is something practitioners called "constitutional remedy" which is even more stupid than what mentioned earlier. This is an idea that works a bit like Astrology. The difference here is, we are talking about your health, not about how you think your week will develop love wise according to your horoscope. So this is in practice more alarming than Astrology. But let's go forward. So the idea is that certain remedies will work better with certain people, depending on your personality, physical features such as hair color...(??). There is for example a type of people called the "Sulfur Type" who are very independent people....? Yep, that's how they base the kind of treatment you should get, very reliable in deed.

Going back to the dilution problem, there are certain rules in chemistry that said that when a certain limit is exceeded, the dilution has lost its properties regarding the original substance, this corresponds to homeopathic dilutions of 12C or 24X (1 part in 10²⁴). Hahnemann himself realized that there is virtually no chance that even one molecule of original substance would remain after extreme dilutions. But he believed that the vigorous shaking or pulverizing with each step of dilution leaves behind a "spirit-like" essence—"no longer perceptible to the senses"—which cures by reviving the body's "vital force." Modern proponents assert that even when the last molecule is gone, a "memory" of the substance is retained. This notion is unsubstantiated. Moreover, if it were true, every substance encountered by a molecule of water might imprint an "essence" that could exert powerful (and unpredictable) medicinal effects when ingested by a person (www.quackcast.com).

There are plenty of other equally stupid examples regarding this practice, but I guess these are good enough. The scientific community is trying to eliminate this non-sense and potentially harmful practice by means of law, but perhaps starting from education could be a first step, because as I will talk on my next post, what we do as a society is vastly influenced by our environments, is important to start at the individual level. The problem with this pseudo-science practices is that they have become beliefs for plenty of people, and as I have exposed before, beliefs are hard to let go because it exposes our ignorance and therefore directly touches on the sensitive fibers of human ego and our and conceit. But once we learn that accepting our ignorance is a liberating step, not only do this process is made easier, but it also enhances us as a society. So before you get seduced by these practices, think first it they really make any sense. Remember, if it sounds magical, it's probably crap!!

Watching a video is always funnier than reading stuff, so check out James Randy talking about this, very educational.

Rode