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Meditation 1217
Homeopathic bullets

by: John Tyrrell

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There's a short news story in the June issue of PC World about a Colorado man who fired 8 shots into his PC after encountering the "blue screen of death" one time to many.

Somewhat amusing I suppose, but what I laughed out loud at was hi profession - he operates a homeopathic herb store.

Now I've heard of homeopathic "medicine" and I've heard of herbal remedies - but homeopathic herbs? Perhaps he carefully collects the early morning dew from the leaves of his growing herbs and dilutes it appropriately. I don't know.

I've always found the idea of homeopathic medicine ridiculous. As Wikipedia states unequivocally:

Homeopathy is pseudoscience. It is not effective for any condition, and no homeopathic remedy has been proven to be more effective than placebo

I've tended to see belief in homeopathy as akin to religions belief - something which can only be taken on faith. Now - in trying to find out what homeopathic herbs were, google took me to an article on Livestrong which expressed the author's opinion that homeopathy and herbal remedies were quite different, though he seemed to think both worked.

A Dr. Hussain Madrasi of the Calcutta Homoeopathy Medical College & Hospital had commented on the article saying:

If you believe in God who does not have a material existence, why can't you think of immaterial Homeopathic medicine to be effective medicine, when it has survived for 2 hundred years.

There you have it from a homeopath - belief in homeopathic medicine is essentially the same as belief in God.

Getting back to the opening anecdote - the guy who shot his computer eight times with a 9mm Hi-Point pistol. I expect that if he sells homeopathic medicine (made with or without herbs), then surely he must believe in it. So why didn't he shoot his computer with homeopathic bullets, created by soaking a single round in a bucket of water for a few days? After all, a few atoms of lead in a loaded water pistol - or even better - a fully loaded super-soaker - would have to do far more damage than eight actual bullets. It's a fundamental homeopathic principle.

But of course that would not occur to him because he would know that attacking his computer with homeopathic bullets would have no more effect than water alone. Just as he should also know that attacking a disease with homoeopathic medicine has no more effect than water alone.

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