Having a flu right now :-( and my friend offered me to take these pills. She said they had helped everyone in her family in the beginning of the flu process. So we’ll see its effecnt on me:-) And in Russia 6 doses costs about 200 rubles, which is roughly 6 dollars.

Which proves that being a scientist doesn’t preclude being an idiot. I have known a lot of these during my university time.

My mom had been handed a bottle of some homeopathic stuff during The Swine Flu Hysterics. The tag said it contained mercury as active ingredient. WTF? I told her not to take it because either there’s enough mercury in it to do something and then it’s stupid to take it or there isn’t so it wouldn’t do anything. The funniest (or most depressing) thing is that the friend who gave it to her is a normal conventional scientist who somehow believes in that shit.

@Kim

O what a nice way to but it

:) Thats awesome, I figured this was one of those stories that you have, and hold on to… and then you saw the xkcd comic and was like “oh that reminds me… *blog blog blog*” :P

Anyway, awesome post. Hey btw, if I am still “blogroll” worthy, geeksparadox (and the blog) are both down… indefinately. I blog at travismccrea.com either way the link is broken :)

200 dilutions… More like 200 delusions >_>

@ths

Thats because, according to the quacks behind homeopathy, the more diluted the “solution” the stronger it is. By that logic a single drop in the ocean would cure everyone.

Of course they rely on people not researching what it means and on people desperation. Congratulations on not being an idiot

Facing a similar predicament here. I’m having a heck of a time attempting to debunk some of the funny little anecdotes from “helpful” individuals about how to care for my kid.

funny that discussions about that pop up in Germany here are there at the same time.
I guess it relates to the political discussion currently going on.
the government wants to ban payment of homeopathic medication by public health insurances. This is a voluntary payment some insurance companies chose to offer, while others don’t pay it at all. Now it should be forbidden altogether to save money (voices say it will save approx. 9 mio. Euro per year, this sounds very low and not worth the discussion).
According to Avogadro’s law you don’t have anything worthwhile in a solution after applying the dilution process 23 times with a “D” (10%), obviously even less when applying “C” (1%) dilution.
Funny enough most people who don’t understand the nomenclature think that a “D8” is stronger stuff than “D4” and would in fact prefer the stronger over the weaker this way ;)

@ Travis McCrea:

Honestly, I haven’t checked XKCD in a while and this is 100% coincidental. That whole thing about me being sick and being handed sugar pills – that actually happened in real life.

Kinda funny that we converged on this topic at roughly the same time.