Molecules Do Not Have Memories

In the wake of Salon laying the smackdown on the Huffington Post for its ludicrous pro-crackpot "health and wellness reporting", I'd like to take a moment to gangpile on one of my favorite Stupid Things People Actually Believe: Homeopathy.

Now, there is a great deal of (understandable) misunderstanding about what homeopathy actually is, and what it means to call something "homeopathic". When you say the words "homeopathic medicine" to someone, they often think of "holistic medicine", which is not nearly as stupid an idea.

Homeopathy is stupid in two ways, one understandable and the other oh-my-god-where-do-people-come-up-with-these-things whacktacular. We'll get to the latter in a second. In order to understand the former, we have to start with a little history.

Once upon a time, some peasant somewhere in Western Europe got stabbed in the foot. It hurt. A lot. So the peasant started to hobble home, only he tripped and fell, and banged his head on a rock. It hurt. A lot. But the peasant suddenly noticed his foot didn't hurt any more.

Thus the peasant discovered the principle of counterstimulation: the idea that you can treat pain in one part of the body by introducing a different sensation, even other pain. It actually works quite well, because the body can only process one sensation at a time. Tiger Balm does nothing but make your sore muscles tingly, but since your brain can't process tingly and sore at the same time, you feel only the tingly, and thus the sore "goes away". Of course, the muscles are still injured, but what do you care? You can't feel it! You can get a similar effect by pinching the nerve in your hand in the muscle between your thumb and forefinger if you have a headache: it will hurt, but you won't have a headache as long as you pinch it hard enough.

Useful principle to know, right? Problem is, the peasant thought he'd discovered a cure for stabbed foot. And then started telling people he was a doctor, and hitting them in the head with rocks. And thus was born the concept of heroic medicine, which is essentially the idea that the way to treat any injury or illness simply has to involve inflicting a further injury or illness on the patient, or else it simply can't be "good for you". This is where we get bloodletting, purging, and cutting off peoples' limbs just because they have the sniffles.

"See? Just like I told you: you can barely feel that hangnail now!"

This was the medical tradition in Western Europe for centuries. (Ironic side note for the people who value alternative medicine as "ancient wisdom from the Orient": doctors from the Middle East and Asia who visited Western Europe at this time were horrified by this barbaric crap). Then someone invented the scientific method, and this brought to peoples' attention the fact that people are a lot less likely to survive their illnesses when you stick leeches on them than if you just leave them alone in a field somewhere to die.

Science marched on, but a seed was planted: the idea that you could cure something by causing more of the initial symptoms with something else. This came to be called the "Law of Similars". It's the basis of all homeopathy: the active ingredient in each homeopathic remedy is something that causes similar symptoms to what it's trying to cure. Say, onions to cure hay fever, because both give you red, watery, irritated eyes.

Stupid? Yes. But understandable. Alleviating symptoms (through, say, counterstimulation) can look an awful lot like a cure, and we tend to extrapolate larger patterns from impactful experiences.

The other stupidity of homeopathy, though? I have no idea where it came from, or how people can possibly believe it. No friggin' clue. I'm still in total "Aroo?" territory over this one.

Quizzical dog is quizzical.

See, it would be one thing if they took that counterstimulative/heroic/just plain worthless active ingredient, mixed it in some water, and slapped a "Cures Cancer!" sticker on it. But they don't: they take the mixture and dilute it. Not just once, twice, or ten times, but a LOT. Enough times that there's none of the active ingredient left. Not a single molecule. By, like, a factor of ten, or a hundred.

Now, what do you get when you take orange juice, mix it in with water, and dilute it that much?

Water.

What about plutonium?

Water.

How about the hopes and dreams of a little girl that someday her parents may get back together if she's good enough, oh and by the way can she have a flying rainbow sprinkles unicorn?

Still water.

What's the difference between a homeopathic remedy -- ANY homeopathic remedy -- and water? Not a damn thing. Except that these people believe that water has a memory.

Water doesn't have a memory you say? Au contraire, says the homeopath. You just have to shake it by hitting it just right between each dilution.

That's right: in direct contradiction to everything we know about physics, chemistry, biology, common sense, and the things your mom smacked you upside the head for saying because they were so dumb, people who believe in homeopathy believe you can make water remember things if you slap it hard enough.

Let me say this once, and let it rest there: MOLECULES DO NOT HAVE MEMORIES.

"I beg to differ. All I need is that taste: The taste of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom , my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane."

Sorry if I've ruined anybody's placebo out there, but there are plenty more where that came from. Try putting tic-tacs in an ancient Pueblo medicine bag; it'll do you just as well, and your breath will be minty fresh.

-- The Prolix Wag

Not afraid to make an absinthe molecule quote Proust.