Earth is moving at 67,000mph around its star, and still people insist there's no such thing as progress! This site is about looking at rationality and reason, and challenging dogma.
Following on in the skeptical mission of illustrating, italicising and underlining how utterly stupid, dangerous and ludicrous homeopathy really is, here’s something from the very funny That Mitchell & Webb Look BBC comedy sketch show:
It’s not just water wizardry it mocks, of course, but palmistry, astrology, chakras, crystal healing and other forms of bollocks. I love the homeopathic beer. Very clever stuff.
Interestingly, both David Mitchell and Robert Webb are alumni of the Cambridge Footlights. The Footlights count among its former members legendary people like Clive Anderson, Alexander Armstrong & Ben Miller, David Baddiel, Tim Brooke-Taylor (Goodies), Graham Chapman (Python), John Cleese (Python), Peter Cook, Hugh Dennis & Steve Punt, David Frost, Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie (Fry & Laurie, Blackadder, QI, House, etc), Germaine Greer, Eric Idle (Python), Clive James, Simon Jones (HHGTTG), Bill Oddie (Goodies), John Oliver (Daily Show with Jon Stewart), Sue Perkins, Griff Rhys Jones, Emma Thompson, Sandi Toksvig, and Mark Watson. Basically every piece of TV and film comedy to have come out of the UK in the last 50 years.
One of my personal heroes, and author of the mind-blowingly brilliant and easily understandable Bad Science, explains what exactly is the placebo effect:
Ben is a magnificent communicator of science, health and logic-related concepts in a manner than can be understood by anyone, and he’s very active in the skeptical scene — including speaking at the inaugural TAM London last October and a recent appearance on Robert Llewellyn‘s often fascinating CarPool video podcast — though seems loathe to label himself as such. (Perhaps he’d prefer we consider that our realms of interest often coincide).
Today is the day of the worldwidehomeopathic overdose that originally started with groups of skeptics throughout the UK — the 1023 Campaign — planning a protest (or a demonstration, in the literal sense of the word) in front of a high street pharmacy chain against their insistence on selling homeopathic products, despite repeated scientific analysis and practical demonstrations proving they are no better than the placebo effect.
I had arranged to attend the Oxford Skeptics in the Pub event due to take place near Radcliffe Camera, but — despite getting everything prepared last night, including programming my satnav for a carpark near the event — I forgot to set my alarm. I admit it: I am an idiot.
So I dropped an email apology to the organiser and prepared to ‘overdose’ at home… without the homeopathic protection of homeopathic medical services against this homeopathic act of homeopathic self harm. Homeopathically dangerous, I’m sure you’ll agree.
At precisely 10:23 this morning, I broke the seal and emptied the contents of my pre-purchased container of “30c Homeopathic potency of Sepia officinalis” — as it says in bold red lettering on the label — into my camera’s lens cap and then swallowed it all (minus the lens cap) in one sugary, children’s sweets-like gulp, washed down with a few mouthfuls of water. It’s now some time later and I’m feeling homeopathically ill, the world is homeopathically spinning around me, and I think I may homeopathically pass out anytime soon. Or put another way: I’m typing this blog post while drinking a nice cup of tea, and considering making myself a late breakfast. I am, by all accounts, homeopathically dead.
And while I couldn’t quite work out how to take photos while in the process of swallowing the sugar pills, I did take some. Behold! The mighty power of the sugar pill!
Pics 1 & 2: Note the therapeutic indications line in the second image.
Pic 3: Every pillule emptied into my camera’s lens cap.
Pic 4: Oh look, it’s 10:23! We know what that time means…
Pic 5: All gone! Sweet sugary goodness… and utter pseudoscientific bollocks.
You only have my word to go on that I committed homeopathic harakiri today (although my cat witnessed it, I’m not sure she’d be suitable to give testimony), but in this article alone I have provided orders of magnitude more evidence of me swallowing these pills than exists for the efficacy of homeopathy. I did indeed swallow them all in one gulp, and it’s over 90 minutes since I did so and the world (or my world, at least) has not ended. And I paid £4.99 for the privilege.
If you think that homeopathy has helped someone you know, then neither of you understand the importance of the placebo effect. Please learn about it — it’s a very real effect with measurable positive results. Ultimately there is no direct harm in taking homeopathic products (as all 1023 campaigners have proven today), but there is harm in taking these products instead of seeking medical advice. Particularly if they have an ailment where earlier diagnosis can make the difference, or affect long-term health or even life. They may feel better taking these pills for a little while, but eventually even they’ll stop working as the problem gets worse and by then it may well be too late.
But I’m not trying to convince you of anything that’s not provable or measurable. Do your own research and come to your own conclusions — even if a thousand or more skeptics around the world ‘overdosing’ on homeopathic products isn’t enough to convince you (for some Twilight Zone reason). Perhaps pick up a book by an actual scientist and medical doctor, and examine what research they’ve done to research their conclusions. I’d highly recommend Bad Science by Ben Goldacre (Amazon or Amazon UK), as it’s very readable, full of information (including this topic), and it’s all supportable by evidence.
Update:Thanks to Antony, we have some video footage of the the Oxford event:
Update 5: And now the walls begin to fall. The New Zealand Council of Homeopaths has just admitted that… Homeopathy: There’s Nothing In It! It’s only a matter of time before the rest of the homeopathy industry worldwide admit the same or begin circling the wagons. Either way, the truth is now public knowledge and we should see less of this:
