Before a couple of years ago, I'd heard of Homeopoathy, but I'd never really bothered to think about it. I ignored it with up with a lot of different 'alternative' medecines as just something I didn't need to know about. Then (after watching a slew of youtube videos about frauds or some such) I happened upon this video of the Amazing Randi discussing Homeopathy, which pretty well sums it up.
If you don't have time for the video at the moment, I'll give you a summary of the basics. Developed German physician (Hahnemann) in the late 18th and early 19th century, who believed in a lot of things that were genuinely beneficial (bedrest, fresh air, hygiene) that were contrary to the beliefs of his time. This, in part, may be part of the reason why his 'provings' were as successful as they were, simply because he applied some very sensible practices alongside the alternative 'remedies'. He also believed that chronic diseases were a manifestation of some kind of evil spirit or miasma.
Ok the Laws. Law of similars - Essentially to cure something, you have to be given a substance that induces the same kind of symptoms as the ailment your suffering. Sounds sensible, right. So, in order to treat insomnia...caffiene and other sleep preventing substances would be present in the 'remedy'. Sounds perfectly sensible right?
Law of infinitesimals. This basically says, the less of a substance (or even the less potential chance of a substance being present) there is, the more powerful it is. To give you an idea, for the solution to have even one molecule of the original material it it would require a container 30,000,000,000 times the size of the Earth (that's from the wiki article). A typical 12c remedy has about a 60% chance of having even a single molecule of the original substance in it. The rest is generally water, or glucose if it's in pill form (I believe). Makes perfect sense, right?
This basically is based up on the belief that the water contains 'vibrations' of the original substance. I should quickly point out that there is no mention of the vibrations of any of the garbage, fecal matter, heavy metals, etc, that the water has already touched prior to being introduced to the homeopathic substance.
Now, I'm not going to go on much further. Suffice it to say, Homeopathy has never been proven to have any effect (under clinical examination) than the placebo effect. This makes perfect sense with what my logical mind says. I don't discount that there might be things that I don't understand but this just sounds to me like snake oil. I suspect the companies producing the homeopathic remedies for money are laughing all the way to the bank. Do you really think it's a good idea to support this kind of predatory marketing?
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Much of the same things about "predatory marketing" also apply to medicine. There's a few recent studies in the Psychology section of AW on antidepressants worth looking at (they have Prozac, specifically, but there are others from a Google search), as well as on double-blind brain surgeries for Parkinson's Disease. I don't endorse homeopathy at all, but since I assume we're using modern medicine as the standard for what would be predatory and what wouldn't, I hesitate to be so harsh. The placebo effect itself is strangely valuable to peoples' health in many instances.
But when you get down to it, my concerns are these: first, homeopathy (and other forms of non-scientific medicine, cross culturally) is believed by some to work--but they choose to do so with the full doubt of the system of pharmaceutical propaganda, doctors' knowledge, and common knowledge around them. Second, use of the placebo effect can be effective (conditionally on one's belief in it, if I remember right). And last, when I see it happening in both realms--though much more in the case of homeopathy--my concerns turn to the pharmaceutical industries more; they have expended more money in advertising, their cures have far higher costs, their side-effects are much more of a concern, their wealth is far more concentrated, and people have almost absolute faith when a doctor claims that a medicine will work.
I think it'd be ridiculous to dispute the value of homeopathy beyond the placebo effect, but I do feel that the comparison here is necessary. I do the other benefits of modern medicine an injustice, though; my complaints are, obviously, not the norm. (Well, as far as we know, since it takes as long as it does for the studies to conclude when certain prescriptions are bogus, but I really don't want to become a conspiracy theorist.)
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