To be sure, there is nothing we can really know, already the old Empiricists realized that. However, Popper taught us that we can be pretty sure if we find something to be false, for instance when the discovery of a black swan falsifies the statement that all swans are white. This scientific method of deriving test statements and then trying to falsify them has served humankind rather well over the last 200 years or so. This method has shown that it makes no difference if a homeopath gives his/her patients what he/she understands as real homeopathic medicine or an otherwise identical compound lacking the homeopathic remedy. Same doctor, same conditions different 'drugs', no difference in outcomes. Study over study has shown the statement 'homeopathic drugs heal' as false - there are black swans. Thus, to the best extent humanly possible we know that homeopathy is quackery. Yet, unbelievably, there are still unpersuadables who believe in the face of overwhelming contradictory evidence.

I was already planning to post on homeopathy before I found the Jefferson quote above at Pharyngula. The blatant endorsement of anti-intelelctualism at a panel discussion on modern public intellectuals during a scholarly conference last week just begged for a more coherent answer than I could give right then and there. Some statements are just so thoroughly debunked by now, that seems like a waste of time to keep trying to convince the unpersuadables. Consequently, I had thought of mocking homeopathy, but hadn't quite decided on how. Then I read a short story on homeopathy by MD and comedian Eckart von Hirschhausen and the next morning I saw the Jefferson quote - that was all I needed. Below comes my own loose translation of the hilarious short story by von Hirschhausen, go and read his entire book!

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Homeopathy - Gimme small balls

I only rarely disclose that I'm an MD at parties. Because if I do, it inadvertently elicits two reflexes in the people present: I get to listen to a half-hour of horror stories about the failure of evidence-based medicine and then I just have to follow to the bathroom and provide a free second opinion on some dubious skin diagnosis. The best thing to do at parties is to talk about homeopathy. Everyone always has only good experiences with homeopathy. Or rather, who doesn't have any experiences, or even bad ones, shuts up by themselves, fearing societal sidelining. Homeopathy in medicine is what David Hasselhoff is for German music: you can't argue with their popularity, no matter what you think of them. And: who doesn't give up for such a long time, must have something going for them, right? Large sections of the healthcare market aren't science, but part of the entertainment industry.

Homeopathy works. No question. Only that it probably has nothing to do with the underdosed potions, but rather with undiluted sympathy. Someone attentively listens to you for hours, asks questions, gives you faith, love, hope and strict instructions on how to lead your life. For 2000 years these have been active ingredients, only that today people are more willing to hear them from homeopaths, rather than from priests. No chemistry, no pharmaceutical industry. Contradictory clinical studies. Instead, satanic, but natural poisons like arsenic, bee venom or Ipecac are being diluted until statistically there cannot be a single molecule left in the water. But: the water remembers with which of a million particles it has had contact previously. Weird: My head often doesn't remember on the next day with whom I've had contact the day before and my brain consists to 90% of water! Anyway - my homeopath assures me: “this potion contains all the information your body needs right now!”

Also about disease progression there were waterproof prophecies: If the discomfort increases, it's a sign that the potion works, the so-called 'initial worsening'. If the patient improves - the better. If nothing happens, it's because of amalgam fillings. Who heals is always right. You just have to phrase it accordingly, such that, no matter what happens, the healer is always right.

Yet another emotional plus for the homeopaths: you're not getting what everyone else is getting, no, you will get YOUR OWN individual treatment: all the information your body needs right now. I tried it. I really did feel better afterwards. Screw it if it was due to the little balls or the high doses of compassion or the fantastic anamneses every general practitioner would do good emulating.

When I received the bill over 200 Euros, I wired the moeny immediately. All 2 cents. I added to the wire: “After all that I've learned, this is exactly the information your account needs right now.”

If your doctor can take that sort of joke: stay there. If not, make yourself scarce.

Nevertheless: homeopathy is somehow sympathetic. Other approaches in alternative medicine are just plain weird, especially urotherapy. These people collect their own pee in all earnest, gurgle it or drink it. In other words: mis en bouteille par le propriétaire.

I've never understood that. I respect the wisdom of my body. If the kidneys want to excrete something, I believe them. They filter 180 liters of blood every day in order to get all the harmful metabolites out of our body. And then someone comes along and says: urine - what a special juice. Let's down it again. What? I think even the kidneys feel taken for suckers sometimes.

I've long pondered developing a scheme for the ultimate alternative medicine. Couldn't one use the dilutions of the homeopaths and urotherapy at the same time? Yes, it works! In the public pool! Children do it intuitively! They are just so much closer to the original knowledge.

Now I'm just waiting for my health insurance to cover me urinating into the pool…

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I'm not holding my breath that Mike Sandbothe will be reading this post, let alone think about it for even a second.