[cronjobber]

You are wrong, like most homeopathy critics.

Have you ever observed typical homeopathy users—middle to upper-middle class mothers of young children—in their natural habitat?

I have. They're all "true believers" in that they really think homeopathic remedies are useful, for themselves and their kids. And yet, despite that, they also exhibit a well developed instinct on when not to rely on homeopathy and send themselves or the child off to a "real" medical practitioner. Strange, isn't it?

It ceases to be inexplicably strange if you think about their shared belief in homeopathy as a socially evolved strategy about how to keep themselves and (more crucially) their children away from doctors in those plentiful cases of minor sniffies where a doctor is overkill and actually more likely to do harm than do any better than "doing nothing".

The sad thing is that society doesn't allow a mother to just "do nothing". Where there's no accepted alternative, she "must" visit a doctor, lest she be accused of neglecting her duty to care for her children.

That's why it seems that some parts of society—and not the stereotypically "stupid" ones at all—have evolved mechanisms that afford them social license to avoid the doctor when the doctor is more likely to do harm than good.

[JoeAltmaier]

SO, as a placebo it's performing a useful function? Alternatively, develop a backbone and do what you think is right regardless of criticism.

No, homeopathy is the art of selling water to people who need medicine, and telling them its medicine. Its actually evil, in the sense that its lying to make money, and hurting somebody who trusts you. As mentioned, at best there's no harm because there was no need. But nowhere in the process is there any reason to believe instinct will magically kick in when real medicine is needed.

[everybodyknows]

Your thesis leaning on the reality of social pressure seems plausible. And not wasting doctor's time with trivial complaints clearly has social value.

But what about the opposite case: Serious complaints left effectively untreated while the disease progressing under "homeopathic treatment"? http://whatstheharm.net/homeopathy.html

Wouldn't even one such case have to be weighted more heavily than a hundred wasted 15-minute doctor's appointments?

[Chris2048]

> society doesn't allow a mother to just "do nothing"

Can you back up that anecdote?

> evolved mechanisms

Just to clarify - over what period of time do you think humans have developed (via evolution) this trait?