Homoeopathy: Help explain it to our credulous parliamentarians!

[RossFW]

I posted this elsewhere. I'm not sure if it has been used as an argument before:-

Dr Mutadev2in,

I wonder if you could answer a question for me regarding homeopathy.

You talk here about a 200c solution, or 10^201. This represents a solution something of the magnitude of a drop of water in a body of water the size of the sun.

Your fellow Homeopaths admit that at this dilution, not a single molecule of the active ingredient is in the remedy, but claim there is a "Memory" effect in the water used, at some sub-atomic level.

My question is this- If water has this property and "Remembers" the ingredient you add, wouldn't it also remember any other impurity that had ever been in it or any body of water it had been a part of? And as we are talking about such a tiny dilution, wouldn't all the water on earth have been exposed to just about every molecule that exists on the planet, and retain the "Memory" of that molecule?

Would not, in fact, every glass of water you use to prepare you remedies have a much higher concentration of every molecule of every remedy known to homeopathy than that of the solution you are preparing? And as higher doses reduce the effects of your remedies, would not that make ANY homeopathic solution using water ineffective?

If it helps, feel free to use it.

 

[Asolepius]

Thanks RossFW, and welcome. But this argument has been used many times before, and it's one to which homeopaths seem impervious. Well in all honesty they are impervious to any intelligent argument and it's hardly worth trying! But if you do get a reply, please post it here just in case there is a new twist in their already warped thinking.

 

[Mojo]

And as I pointed out in the other thread, the numbers are considerably more ludicrous than that. 200C is a 1:10⁴⁰⁰ dilution, so as there are only about 10⁸⁰ atoms in the observable universe it is roughly equivalent to one atom in 10³²⁰ universes.

 

[RossFW]

Asolepius and mojo,

Thanks for the feed back and the correction. I will still be interested in the good doctors answer.