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Tuesday, April 05, 2011

 

Homeopathy Information

The Tides of CrimeCartoon source Cetic.

Homeopathy is an alleged therapy which combines 18th century alchemy with extreme dilutions, such that the probability that there is one molecule of the starting material in any "remedy" is negligible.

Many people think there is something to homeopathy, but many people also think that the full moon is linked to accidents and criminal behavior, let alone earthquakes, when in fact there is no such link.We are easily fooled by our preconceptions and selective recall, and so it is for homeopathy.

If you want reliable information on homeopathy, I suggest these sources.

Dilution Cartoon source XKCD.

Start at the 10:23 campaign for a good one-stop basic information source.

For more detail, over at Science based medicine, there is a good, easily readable series on homeopathy. You might also like to know that homeopathy has been failing clinical trials since 1835. Then there is the weighty House of Commons Science and Technology Committee (STC) report, Evidence Check 2: Homeopathy, which concludes that there is no evidence that homeopathy works any better than placebos (commentary here).

Then there are the following posts on a recent trial of an alleged homeopathic breast cancer remedy from Orac (with follow up) and Australia's own Dr. Rachie (I appear in the comments).

If the above is all a bit heavy, maybe some light entertainment from Orac, or a song from Australia's Tim Minchin will help lighten the mood.

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