So far on this blog I have focused mostly on religion, but for the next few weeks we’ll be expanding out into the realm of pseudoscience, woo, bunk, and other forms of bull shit. Today, we’re going to start with Homeopathy. Here’s a video from the BBC that presents a few key concepts for homeopathic remedies:

In case you missed the two key points of how homeopathy works, they are:
1. Homeopathic treatments are made by taking a substance that creates similar symptoms and diluting it, a lot.
2. The efficacy of homeopathy is based on anecdotal evidence, not clinical trials.

In the case of a 30C dilution, it is diluted by a factor of 100 thirty times, with the end result being a dilution by a factor of 10^60 (that’s a 10 followed by 60 zeros), or one part in a novemdecillion. By the time you get something that dilute, the chances of one dose containing even one molecule of the “active” ingredient is slim to nil.

Homeopaths consider a higher dilution as the standard of efficacy. I know it’s completely counter intuitive to think that the the less of the “active” ingredient you have, the stronger the treatment, but this is what they do. In the real world, generally speaking the more dilute something is the less effective it is. There are a few exceptions where a 5% or 10% concentration might be most effective, but that is still highly potent when compared with homeopathy.

Let’s look at alcohol as an example. Most American beers are around 5% alcohol by volume, most wines are around 13%, and hard alcohol is generally 40%. That is why 12 ounces of beer, 6 ounces of wine, and 1.5 ounces of liquor are considered equivalent. By the logic of homeopathy a drop of beer in a gallon of water would be more potent than a whole bottle of tequila.

With a 30C homeopathic remedy, what you are buying may or may not contain the “active” ingredient. That means you have no actual knowledge of what is there. If you actually have one molecule of the substance, then you are well above 30C, and if you have none then you are well below that level. Either way, it is inaccurate labeling and false advertising. After all, if I’m buying a diluted solution of arsenic, I would want to know how much, if any, is in it.

The evidence of efficacy they have is anecdotal, in other words, the placebo effect. This shouldn’t be surprising since all you’re getting is a placebo.

This is all in contrast with pharmaceuticals who make highly potent medicines, test the efficacy and safety in double blind clinical trials, and then submit it to the FDA for approval. The FDA also ensures that someone who has no financial interest in the treatment or medication can evaluate it’s safety and efficacy. They take their job seriously enough that when the FDA started regulating tobacco, FDA inspectors had to sell any shares they may have owned in any tobacco companies. Homeopathy does none of this.

Homeopathy is clearly not scientific, not effective, and essentially complete bull shit. I have heard rumors that the FDA may be trying to get regulatory oversight over homeopathic remedies, if they succeed, and require products to be licensed, we could easily see the end of something that does little more than put idiots at risk.

(Video via Atheist Media Blog)