The "scientific" formulation of "life helps like," as I've heard it, is simply "symptoms to diseases are actually signs of the immune system attempting to work. Rather than stifle them, one should encourage them." So, for example, when you have a cold, rather than take medicines to force your runny nose to stop running, one should take things which encourage the nose to run more: the running is a sign of the nose trying to purge out whatever you caught, and blocking it up only prolongs the disease period itself.
Now I'm not saying that's correct at all as a medical model but formulated *as such* you can see why it was not dismissed as total quackery by my professors. Of course the diluted aspect is clearly pure unscientific nonsense.
Yes, I see. I suppose that's a fairly typical introduction to homeopathy. It sounds sort of plausible and somewhat interesting. Here's a sample pro-homeopathy article that starts like this:
http://www.betterhealthchannel.com.au/bhcv2/bhcarticles.nsf/pages/Homeopathy...
"Homoeopathic medicine deliberately mimics or provokes the symptoms of a patient's disease to strengthen the body's ability to heal itself."
Sounds plausible but read a bit further down and see the actual basis of the method:
"Modern homoeopathy was founded in the 18th Century by a German physician, Dr Samuel Hahnemann. He believed that:
* Disease stemmed from a disturbance to the energy field of the body, which he called the 'vital force'.
* The best cure could be achieved by using 'energised' medicine.
* As the size of the dose decreased, the potency of the substance increased."
Anyone familiar with science or medicine should be raising eyebrows at this point - but the best is yet to come.
"These medicines then undergo a progressive series of dilutions, which includes shaking the bottle between each dilution. ... After the twelfth dilution, the homoeopathic medicine goes beyond what is called 'Avogadro's limit' and there is no discernible trace of the original substance left in the medicine."
Note that this is from a *pro-homeopathy* article. They freely admit that the purported medicine is completely diluted out of the solution. They claim that it works anyway:
"Although conventional scientific methods cannot explain how they work, many clinical trials have found homoeopathic medicines to be effective in treating a range of disorders."
Science can indeed not explain how something like that would work. If someone did prove it to work it would be a huge development in physics, chemistry and medicine. A Nobel prize would be guaranteed.
But it hasn't been proven to work, despite their claim to the contrary. In *properly conducted* clinical trials it fails every time. But in studies conducted by homeopaths it always seems to work - and how could it fail to work with these kinds of criteria:
"Sometimes, symptoms get worse before they get better. This may be a sign that the medicine is working, and that the body is strengthening its efforts to fight the disease..."
So, if you get better it's working and if you get worse, well, it's probably working anyhow.
And look at these homeopaths' attitude to boring old conventional medicine:
"According to the homoeopathic philosophy, conventional drugs that suppress symptoms are only driving the disease deeper into the body."
Of course they have the requisite disclaimers about consulting with your regular doctor but they're still giving out harmful medical advice.
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But don't take my word for it. Read this homeopathy page for yourself (it's short) and then tell me if there's still doubt in your mind as to the pseudoscientific nature of the discipline and whether you think it is reasonable for an encyclopædia to entertain such doubts in its category system.
Regards, Haukur
P.S. Full disclosure, I came upon this article from http://www.randi.org/jr/070105quality.html#1