Homeopathy should be banned

Seeing as my opponent posted fairly quickly the link to the edutarian article in the comments section after "forfeiting" the last round, I accept his reasons, and will be taking the article that he posted there into consideration. In case of site malfunction, I have taken screen captures of the article as evidence, as I reference it in this round: http://tinypic.com...; http://tinypic.com.... So, without further ado, onto my summary of the debate: === 1. Does homeopathy work? === This can be split into two sub-points, as follows: a) Homeopathy doesn't make scientific sense I shall extend what I said in my first round: "[A] key tenet of homeopathy is that high dilutions of the active ingredient within water intensifies the effect of the cure. This does not seem to make medical sense, given perhaps the closest medical example of innoculations, which clearly do not infect the patient - an innoculation precisely being a diluted version of the disease. Another key tenet is that water is able to hold a "memory" of the active ingredient, and so somehow provide the benefits of the active ingredient by proxy. Even leaving aside the question of how this "memory" works, exactly why this is better than directly giving someone the active ingredient itself - especially when giving the ingredient directly is proven to work in traditional medicine - is uncertain." In the edutarian article, my opponent argues that there is a precedent for biological entities responding to low dilutions, pointing to how sharks can smell blood from a long distance. This is not analogous, for two reasons: i. Whilst the shark can smell the blood, it could not influence the shark in any way. Homeopathy claims that ingredients in low dosage can influence a patient better than (or, at least, just as much as) the original active ingredient. Even if, hypothetically, a person could see or smell the ingredient in the remedy, that would not make the remedy any more likely to work. ii. My opponent himself mentioned Avogadro's Number in his first round, which leads to the conclusion that in very high doses, there is NO active ingredient in the remedy at all. (Note that my opponent has not tried to argue in this debate that Avogadro's Number is wrong.) This, in the case of many homeopathic remedies, completely destroys the shark analogy, simply because whilst there is some blood in the sea for the shark to smell, there is no active ingredient in such remedies to even theoretically affect the patient. b) Reputable studies do not show homeopathy to have any effect better than the placebo My opponent dismissed this fact in the edutarian article, saying that studies with poor methodology were "conveniently" discarded, as if somehow this is a political decision rather than a scientific one. This doesn't make sense: the very point of having a strong methodology is to prove that effect x (e.g. patient becomes healthy) was a result of cause y (e.g. the homeopathic remedy) at a rate better than chance/placebo. If this has not been proved, there is room to doubt that the homeopathic remedy was really what caused the patient to become healthy, or on the flipside that the remedy shown to be no better than a placebo was indeed a "true homeopathic remedy". Given, then, that my opponent has already conceded that studies with good methodology show homeopathy to be no better than placebo, this shows - at best, and most charitable - that sufficient study has not yet been done, and so homeopathy cannot be said to be effective. At least charitable, it shows an unwillingness of homeopaths to subject themselves to proper scrutiny, perhaps because they realise that such studies would show homeopathy to be scientifically bankrupt. My opponent further seems to imply through assertion that it is somehow impossible for homeopaths to ever do a scientific study with proper methodology, because somehow "Big Pharma" will just continue to do "better studies". I will point out that Richard Dawkins, certainly not a supporter of homeopathy, has provided a set-up (designed strictly to be as accommodating to homeopathic concerns about previous studies as possible) that would be a perfect proof of homeopathy's effectiveness beyond placebo - it can be found here: http://richarddawkins.net.... Performing a study under such conditions would be the "best study" that homeopathy could ever do... if there is any credibility to it. There isn't even a potential question of financial problems with performing such a study because, as Dawkins points out, one study would not break the bank as far as medical research goes - and at a push, the incredibly wealthy Prince Charles (a strong supporter of homeopathy) could fund it easily. So why don't they? If there is something to homeopathy, then homeopaths have nothing to worry about. === 2. Effectiveness of placebos === My opponent conceded in his edutarian article that: "There is no question that placebo alone cannot work for serious illnesses." His defense then boils boils down to the argument that I have not properly shown the positive effects of homeopathy to be merely down to a placebo. I believe that, as summarised already in this round, I actually have done this: as there is no scientific evidence for, or valid principles behind, homeopathy, the only cause for occasional success in such treatment must be down to the placebo effect alone. === 3. Banning homeopathy vs. banning classical medicine === My opponent continues to talk about Michael Jackson as an alleged example of when classical medicine failed. I extend what I said in the last round about conflating the actions of specific doctors with the medicine itself. The response to certain physicians acting recklessly/maliciously is to ban those physicians from practising medicine, not to ban the medicine itself, for in correct doses the medicine works fine. This principle even holds firm when we look to instances where medicinal side-effects cause illness/death through classical medicine, for the death is due not to the medicine itself - which worked perfectly as expected - but down to the prescribing doctor who didn't check the already-known side-effects against the patient's symptoms/pre-existing conditions. Homeopathy, on the other hand, is different: the remedy ITSELF, for reasons I have already outlined, does not work in serious situations - homeopaths mean well, I'm sure, but it is the remedy that lets patients down, not the doctor unlike with classical medicine. This means that the two situations are not analogous, and my opponent's argument falls here. (As a side-note, my opponent conceded in the edutarian article that the core benefit of homeopathy was "the interview and its holistic treatment of all the ills affecting the patient." On the one hand, this illustrates perfectly what I've said throughout this debate about how the placebo effect works - the patient becoming convinced, through their handling by the doctor, that the remedy will work. On the other hand, this helps illustrate my most recent point, about how classical medicine going bad is down to the pastoral care by the doctor - the doctor not taking a fully holistic approach - and not in fact due to the medicine itself. Note that despite the holistic pastoral approach in homeopathy, it still causes massive harms when relied upon for serious illnesses. This lays the blame for the failure squarely on the remedy itself, not on the actions of the doctor.) ---------------- Because I'm running out of characters, I hope you'll all excuse my lack of extensive rhetoric in conclusion. My argument is clear: homeopathy does not work beyond placebo; placebos do not work for serious illnesses (as my opponent conceded); this causes massive harms which, being disanalagous with classical medicine, justifies a ban of homeopathy.