I'm very disappointed.
Dr. MAS simply ignores basic maths and chemistry, and is incredibly reluctant to spill the beans on his description of homeopathic processes... perhaps because he knew exactly how badly they might stand up to a cursory review from forum participants with a scientific background.
He repeatedly asks why homeopathy is considered paranormal, when this has been answered repeatedly and logically.
A poor show, indeed.
That said, in the interest of fairness, it IS the case that there is still legitimate debate into the efficacy of homeopathic techniques - even in the pages of respected, peer-reviewed journals.
Eschewing my usual passive skepticism, I registered with The Lancet (
www.thelancet.com). This is, of course, a well-known international journal of medical science and practice, read by Doctors everywhere. It's peer-reviewed, and reputable.
In 1998 they published a meta-analysis of 89 double-blind and/or randomised placebo-controlled clinical trials of homeopathy. The combined odds ratio for the 89 studies was in favour of homeopathy, even corrected for publication bias.
They concluded;
"The results of our meta-analysis are not compatible with the hypothesis that the clinical effects of homoeopathy are completely due to placebo. However, we found insufficient evidence from these studies that homoeopathy is clearly efficacious for any single clinical condition. Further research on homoeopathy is warranted provided it is rigorous and systematic."
As you might imagine, the results were controversial, and have attracted vigourous debate and criticism of trial selection (some parties have vested commercial interests in the sector), sloppy practice and other potential bias.
It's not the first time that a positive analysis of this topic has been shown (or suggested) to be deeply flawed. A similar meta-analysis by another group, incidentally, showed no overall effect.
The report is available on-line as a PDF file, and can be accessed once you have registered with the site (just search for 'homeopathy'). Also available is the correspondence, both for and against the conclusions of the report.
It's still an open question whether there is an effect here at all. It's telling that positive studies into this topic frequently fail when repeated by other parties. Benveniste is just the best-known example.
It's disingenuous of Dr. MAS to imply that homeopathic principles are well-understood and scientific explainable - just outside the grasp of us poor forumites. He knows fine well that there is no academic or scientific consensus on the mechanims of homeopathic effects, let alone their actual existence.
In my opinion, it's a waste of time to devote any effort into understanding HOW it works until we've conclusively establised IF it works.
