Climate Change Deniers of the Left

Huffington Post featured and article titled, "How Homeopathic Medicines Work: Nanopharmacology At Its Best." Appearing directly above important reporting on MTV's Jersey Shore, the article is a sort of rambling, discursive apology for the obviously absurd claims made by homeopaths.

The article is amusing because it asserts in its title that homeopathy works, and never bothers to substantiate that point. It is, of course, necessary to point out that homeopathy doesn't actually work. Here is an excellent point-by-point rebuttal of claims made by homeopaths. Even the acting deputy director of the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine admits, "There is, to my knowledge, no condition for which homeopathy has been proven to be an effective treatment." The more stringent and detailed the trials or meta-analysis, the worse homeopathy fairs.

What I found more interesting about the Huffington Post, however, was the creative employment of random scientific concepts to "explain" how homeopathy works, "It is commonly assumed that homeopathic medicines are composed of extremely small doses of medicinal substances. And yet, does anyone refer to an atomic bomb as an extremely small dose of a bomb? In actual fact, there is a power, a very real power, in having atoms smash against each other."

Fairly detailed technological actions must be taken to liberate energy from an atom such that a bomb is created. Were that power accessible by merely diluting a substance in water, the world would be a much more harrowing place. But this is the typical approach of a pseudo-scientist: use scientific sounding concepts and rely on the ignorance of the audience.

Hilariously, moths and sharks are then engaged to explain homeopathy:

"...it is commonly known that a certain species of moth can smell pheromones of its own species up to two miles away. It is no simple coincidence that species only sense pheromones from those in the same species who emit them (akin to the homeopathic principle of similars), as though they have developed exquisite and specific receptor sites for what they need to propagate their species. Likewise, sharks are known to sense blood in the water at distances, and when one considers the volume of water in the ocean, it becomes obvious that sharks, like all living creatures, develop extreme hypersensitivity for whatever will help ensure their survival."

Of course, both the moth and shark developed those sensitivities through billions of years of evolution. Homeopathy, by contrast, has been around about 200. It's hard to understand how humans have evolved to react to diluted amounts of, say, caffeine in the same way that sharks have developed the ability to sense blood from a long way away. There isn't even an attempt to relate these concepts in any real sort of way. Using the same logic I could argue that because moths are attracted to light, sitting in the sun must be good for my skin. It's an almost complete non sequitur.

I have always found it perplexing that in this time of astonishing medical progress people are so drawn to so-called "alternative" healing methods. Homeopathy was around two centuries ago and did very little to ameliorate human well-being. It exists now as it exists then, but the improvement in human longevity and health have perfectly mimicked advancement in scientific medicine.

In order to defend homeopathy one must engage in the same broad condemnation of the scientific establishment that climate change deniers consistently employ: There is a "conspiracy" against alt-meds. The "establishment" is withholding information. At the same time language from science is engaged in misleading and confused ways to give the appearance of legitimacy. The Huffington Post article concludes by declaring homeopathy to be "quantum medicine." They want the prestige and influence of modern science without the annoying responsibility of verifying those claims using scientific methodology.