The green pill works better

Another interesting article on Ben Goldacre's Bad Science blog discusses Homeopathy. The article sumarrizes how the Homeopathic industry is hostile to science and the scientific method while trying to deceive the public by using sciency words like "nano" and "quantum". Dr. Goldacre discusses how homeopathy does have an effect, a very strong effect, which is entirely due to the Placebo Effect (but is an actually effect nonetheless). Homeopathy can provide some benefits to its patients, because the placebo effect is real: Dr. Goldacre mentions a few examples:

we know that four sugar pills a day will clear up ulcers quicker than two sugar pills, we know that a saltwater injection is a more effective treatment for pain than a sugar pill, we know that green sugar pills are more effective for anxiety than red, and we know that brand packaging on painkillers increases pain relief.

I guess that explains why my parents insist on buying the name-brand headache pills, despite their pharmacist's re-assurances that the generic brand is just as good.

But the part of the article that I found most entertaining was the description of homeopathy at the end, where he quotes how homeopathic medicines are created by diluting something. It's pure gold so I'll just quote it:

Homeopathic remedies are made by taking an ingredient, such as arsenic, and diluting it down so far that there is not a single molecule left in the dose that you get. The ingredients are selected on the basis of like cures like, so that a substance that causes sweating at normal doses, for example, would be used to treat sweating.

Many people confuse homeopathy with herbalism and do not realise just how far homeopathic remedies are diluted. The typical dilution is called “30C”: this means that the original substance has been diluted by 1 drop in 100, 30 times. On the Society of Homeopaths site, in their “What is homeopathy?” section, they say that “30C contains less than 1 part per million of the original substance.”

This is an understatement: a 30C homeopathic preparation is a dilution of 1 in 100^30, or rather 1 in 10^60, which means a 1 followed by 60 zeroes, or - let’s be absolutely clear - a dilution of 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000.

To phrase that in the Society of Homeopaths’ terms, we should say: “30C contains less than one part per million million million million million million million million million million of the original substance.”

At a homeopathic dilution of 100C, which they sell routinely, and which homeopaths claim is even more powerful than 30C, the treating substance is diluted by more than the total number of atoms in the universe. Homeopathy was invented before we knew what atoms were, or how many there are, or how big they are. It has not changed its belief system in light of this information.