In my travels last year I met two people who took homeopathic sleep drops.
Infinitely diluted caffeine, taken on the logic (!) that, if caffeine stops you sleeping then taking an infinitely diluted solution of it will make you sleep.
Sure.
If you dilute it another hundred fold. will you sleep even better?
Now, I have been drinking coffee for so long that it doesn't keep me awake. What will these drops do for me? Stop me sleeping?
Quackery. Absolute off the planet, away with the fairies, a sandwich short of a picnic, quackery.
Purveyors of infinitely diluted snake oil.
Now there are times when a placebo is a suitable thing to use, when it has a desirable effect. But there are times when it is not.
To the homeopaths out there: if your child was bitten by a snake, would you be comfortable in administering a few drops of infinitely diluted solution of the snake venom as a cure?
Or would you opt for a full strength dose of anti venom?
...
3 comments:
Good question...
I think homeopathy is limited though in its cures.
but yeah, like you, I dont get its ideology either...!
:)
Ah, if you infinitely dilute a placebo, does it work better?
They say that there are detectable, thought tiny, levels of caffeine in the Mississippi river. And since water treatment plants don't remove it, I would expect that the folks in New Orleans sleep very well.
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