This is practically what i read when i did my latest episode of the Skeptic Podcast Of Doom. It is a bit on homeopathy and its intent originally was for the people who i know personally that don’t know anything about the subject and would like to know more. So i may do a section on some other alternative medicines in future episodes.
Homeopathy (also spelled homoeopathy or homœopathy) is a form of alternative medicine, first proposed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann in 1796, in which practitioners use highly diluted preparations. Based on an ipse dixit axiom formulated by Hahnemann which he called the law of similars, preparations which cause certain symptoms in healthy individuals are given in diluted form to patients exhibiting similar symptoms. Homeopathic remedies are prepared by serial dilution with shaking by forceful striking, which homeopaths term succussion, after each dilution under the assumption that this increases the effect. Homeopaths call this process potentization. Dilution often continues until none of the original substance remains.
Homeopathy’s efficacy beyond the placebo effect is unsupported by the collective weight of scientific and clinical evidence.
Modern homeopaths have proposed that water has a memory that allows homeopathic preparations to work without any of the original substance; however, there are no verified observations nor scientifically plausible physical mechanisms for such a phenomenon. The lack of convincing scientific evidence supporting homeopathy’s efficacy and its use of remedies lacking active ingredients have caused homeopathy to be described as pseudoscience, quackery and a “cruel deception”.
Hahnemann conceived of the law of similars, otherwise known as “let like be cured by like” (Latin: similia similibus curentur) as a fundamental healing principle
Oooooh funny…. Some homeopaths also use techniques that are regarded by other practitioners as controversial. These include paper remedies, where the substance and dilution are written on a piece of paper and either pinned to the patient’s clothing, put in their pocket, or placed under a glass of water that is then given to the patient, as well as the use of radionics to prepare remedies. Such practices have been strongly criticised by classical homeopaths as unfounded, speculative, and verging upon magic and superstition.
60X 30C 10−60 Dilution advocated by Hahnemann for most purposes; patient would need to consume 1041 pills (a billion times the mass of the Earth), or 1034 gallons of liquid remedy (10 billion times the volume of the Earth) to consume a single molecule of the original substance
Wikipedia says see also Sympathetic magic…. ahahahahahaha
POW!
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