Talk:Homeopathy

Evidence of scientific underpinning for homeopathic remedies
please read and refer to The Memory of Water, which details the research done by a French Dr, and scientist who gives a very plausible explanation of the science supported by research and experiment. I am 69, have a masters degree and am not given to daft ideas. My children were treated with homeopathic remedies when they were little, which usually worked very well and were much safer than antibiotics. As a result they have very good immune systems. We are all becoming resistant to antibiotics and homeopathy represents a safe alternative.If it is possible to split or fuse atoms, why can the body which is 80% water, not respond on a molecular level to 'like cures like' treatments? Isn't that how vaccine works in a way? Please put both sides of the discussion. 2A00:23C6:3888:101:D55A:C3A6:77F:AFD6 (talk) 19:29, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Any proposal to such inclusion should be based on sources that satisfy WP:MEDRS. Without such sources this request is off-topic on this article talk page. - DVdm (talk) 20:02, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * When I was studying chemistry at university in the 1990s, we were taught that liquid water does indeed have a 'memory', of sorts, but it is one that lasts for a tiny fraction of a second. Quacks, charlatans and pseudoscientific snake oil salesmen have been relying on that sciencey-sounding phrase to hoodwink scientifically illiterate people into buying their faux remedies for decades. People are not healed by homeopathic remedies, they just get better naturally, just like people who don't take anything when they have a bit of a cold. (Antibiotics don't work on colds, flus and the like either, they are only effective against bacterial infections. And no, we aren't becoming resistant to them - it is the bacteria that are evolving and becoming resistant to them.) Homeopathy is mostly safe, in the sense that most of the remedies sold under the banner of homeopathy aren't actively poisonous; however, it is entirely ineffective, and giving people ineffective drugs when they have real ailments is, well, not ideal. There are no two 'sides' to this, at least in the scientific community, which unanimously accepts that there is no evidence that homeopathy is more effective in treating any ailment than a cup of tea and a bit of sympathy, and also unanimously accepts that there is no scientifically credible proposed mechanism by which it might work. At all. The other 'side' is the result of the marketing effort of what is a multi-billion dollar industry, selling ineffective treatments to people who don't know any better, which wants to keep doing that. We have a duty to reflect the scientific consensus view, and not to reflect the other one. Girth Summit  (blether)  20:08, 22 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Even if there were no rules here against using your own reasoning: Nobody who knows anything about how science works is impressed by people showing off their credentials or the credentials of somebody else, or by anecdotal evidence tainted by Post hoc ergo propter hoc and cherry picking. That "French Dr" is probably Jacques Benveniste who was well-known for his gullibility regarding such things, and his "findings" have not been corroborated. --Hob Gadling (talk) 06:39, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 March 2024
I came across some information about the etymology of the word 'homeopathic' in relation to the practice of magick. I would like to add the following. Edit as you wish.

In The Golden Bough, by Sir James Frazer, the word ‘homeopathy’ is the name used for 1 of three categories of magic - the others being ‘sympathetic’ and ‘contagious.’ According to Fraser, homeopathic magic is the principle that like produces like. An example of this would be the harming or healing of a poppet (sometimes known as a voodoo doll). However, the modern production of homeopathic remedies is more similar to the Law of Contact, or Contagious magic, because it is based on the idea that something that has been in contact with a thing carries the properties of that thing.

Modern practitioners of magick (spelled that way to differentiate it from fairy-tale or theatrical magic) can create magickal remedies that are just as effective (or not, depending on one's point of view). An example of this would be using a relic of a saint to request healing or a miracle, or using a lock of hair or fingernail clippings to cast a spell of healing on the person they were part of. Because contagious magic can be done with items readily available, there is usually no need to spend money on it, unless one chooses to. Of course, the modern producers of homeopathic remedies don’t advertise them as magic, but as medicine, and sell them to people who believe that they are based on science. Were they to sell them legitimately as magickal ointments in a shop catering to magickal practitioners, they might be able to charge as much or more for them, but of course they would reach a much smaller audience.

MorgaineBrigid (talk) 11:55, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

❌. The Golden Bough is not a reliable source. Homeopathy may involve magical thinking, but we're not veering off into "magick". Pepper Beast   (talk)  12:16, 29 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Please read Reliable sources and No original research. While Frazer's Golden Bough is of historical significance, it has little relevance to the topic of this article, which pre-dates Frazer's extension (probably, per more recent critiques, over-extension) of the term 'homeopathy' to broader contexts than we are discussing here. As for the rest, Wikipedia is under no circumstances going to suggest that 'magick' is effective. This is a tertiary source - an encyclopaedia - and as such bases content on secondary scholarship (ideally, academia), rather than the unverifiable claims of homeopaths, or the practitioners of 'magick'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:19, 29 March 2024 (UTC)

page npov
this page has been rewritten curtesy by the "guerilla sceptics" -- they even stupidly brag about it in recruiting events .. source rob heatherly (a list of the 1000+ rewritten wp pages would be nice) Ebricca (talk) 11:54, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Mate, what the heck are you talking about? This page hasn't had a major re-write in the maybe fifteen years it's been on my watchlist.  Pepper Beast    (talk)  12:08, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * another source is on my talk page as yt links are shunned - in a way it is a well known fact to shift perception via intro parts of disliked topics - science(tm) for the win - (interesting that the comment is allowed to live here but not on the ideological bias page) Ebricca (talk) 16:31, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * This page follows NPOV because Wikipedia relies on high quality medical secondary sources to determine scientific consensus. And the reliable sources are very clear about homeopathy.
 * Further, insinuations that editors are attempting to "shift perception" can be construed as a personal attack.
 * Finally, your wording is... very poor. I assume English is not your primary language. In that case, you might want to try editing the wiki for your native language. —  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 16:43, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * sure english is not my primary language - so calling it poor - fine but also ad hominem .. "shifting perception" is the expression the group brags about - really not my words Ebricca (talk) 17:03, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * This article has frequently been discussed as an example of a page that outsiders (usually, but not always, homeopaths with an obvious agenda) have claimed in one way or another to be 'biased'. Discussed by Wikipedia contributors generally, not the very small minority who consider themselves to be 'guerrilla sceptics'. And as far as the broader community of Wikipedia contributors are concerned, it conforms to the policies, arrived at through consensus over very many years, in regard to neutrality, appropriate sourcing etc. If it is 'biased' it is so because it matches the 'biases' inherent in an encyclopaedia that per policy prefers science and academic sources to conspiracy theories and magical thinking. You may not personally like such policy-induced 'bias', but it would appear that readers in general do, considering how often they return to Wikipedia as a reference source. Anyone is of course free to start their own alternative to Wikipedia, or find one of the many existing ones, and read or contribute to that instead. Meanwhile, our encyclopaedia, our rules. Wikipedia has its faults certainly, but not caving in to the demands of magic woo-water peddlers to help them sell their diluted-to-nothingness 'remedies' isn't one of them AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:28, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Also, read ad hominem. It does not mean what you think it means. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:51, 30 March 2024 (UTC)
 * .. :) .. i read the page .. personal attack - means - ad hominem .. but sure i can be completely wrong .. maybe to say "also" by itself already is a "tu quoque" fallacy .. :) .. Ebricca (talk) 18:09, 30 March 2024 (UTC)