345. Homeopathic Unscientific

Homeopathic   Unscientific

Why homeopathic remedies are unscientific: The chemistry behind infinite dilutions and molecular memory

In the simplest sense, homoeopathic remedies are unscientific because there is no evidence from well designed, controlled clinical trials that homoeopathic remedies perform better than placebo. They cannot thus be regarded as evidence-based treatments.
Moreover, homoeopathic remedies are unscientific because the supposedly chemical and physiological principles of homoeopathy have no grounding in science.
In other words, homoeopathic remedies not only don't work, but as far as current state of scientific knowledge goes, cannot work. There is no recognised scientific mechanism that could explain their working.
Homoeopathy is an alternative therapy based on the principle of “like treats like”. This means that a substance that in greater concentrations would cause particular symptoms in healthy people is used, diluted, to treat the same symptoms in a sick person.

There is no evidence whatsoever for this principle to be true. The same symptom can be caused by multiple causes, for example

vomiting can be caused by

1.      chemical poisoning,

2.      bacterial or parasitic

3.      infection,

4.      motion sickness,

5.      pregnancy hormones or

6.      stress.

Anti-emetic drug might alleviate the symptom, but the only way to actually remove it is to deal with the underlying cause.
But the "like-with-like" principle is only the beginning. Homoeopathic remedies are prepared by a serial dilution of the active ingredient. This is because the original creator of homoeopathy, Hahnemann, found that administering the active ingredient undiluted caused the symptoms to worsen rather then improve.
Homoeopathic dilutions are huge, to the degree that the final remedy is extremely unlikely to contain even a single molecule of the active ingredient. Homoeopathic remedies are marked by their "potency", or dilution factor.

The most commonly used scale is a C scale, in which the substance is diluted by the factor of 100 at each stage. Thus,

1.      1C dilution would have one part of active substance in 100 parts of the medium (water).

2.      3C dilution will have 1 part of the active substance in a million parts of the medium.

To make it more clear, a 12C solution will equal dissolving one pinch of salt in the whole of the Atlantic Oceans, while 13C solution would mean diluting less than a drop of the active substance in all the water that is present on Earth.
The dilution most commonly advised by Hahnemann is 60C: 60 dilutions, each by a factor of 100, resulting in a final dilution by a factor of 10 to the power of -60. Many
Why homeopathic remedies are unscientific: The chemistry behind infinite dilutions and molecular memory