Agreed on the public confusion stuff, herbal remedies can often work (hop pillows being a marvelous example) and it’s a pity the homeopathy nonsense gets lumped in with it.

My main problem with the whole affair is the people who assume “homeopathy” just means “natural therapy” rather than the very specific form of nonsense it is. That and the myopia about “big-pharma”.

It’s also why when a member of the skeptic society behind it said to me “keep an eye on us, we’ve got something big planned” I said to him “I hope it’s not some kind of lame mass overdose stunt”

“See! You can’t overdose on it, therefore it clearly doesn’t work for it’s intended purpose of curing you” just isn’t a logical argument.

You can’t meaningfully overdose on fruit and veg, but fruit and veg is good for you. All it shows is that taking homeopathic remedies doesn’t kill you. (And really people, it doesn’t. Taking it instead of real medical treatment might well though.)

The “mass overdose” stunt also betrays a complete disregard for the way that homeopathy “works”. It ignores the “the more you dilute it, the more effect it has” principal. To truly overdose on homeopathic medicine, you’d need to take less of it, not more.

I very much agree with the principals of the anti-homeopathy mob, as homeopathy is quite clearly snake oil – however, the way they’re going about it makes them look like they haven’t thought the campaign at all.

If anything, they appear to have put in *less* thought than the pro-homeopathy mob.

I do hope they’ve got a more convincing plan for their next stunt.