April 22, 2008
Homeoterrorism
Paul Kuliniewicz describes how to be a homeopathic bioterrorist (via respectful insolence).
Given that salt causes hypertension, I would go for diluting salt water until I had a deadly hypotension-causing mixture. Weaponize it by putting it in a sprayer, and you have a deadly weapon using just household ingredients!
Given my research interests, I'm more keen on making the ultimate cognition enhancer. Since alcohol causes people to behave stupidly, a homeopatic dilution of alcohol in water must make the drinker smarter. So dilute pure ethanol in water, shake (I mean succuss - homeopathy doesn't work if you don't use the right terminology: the water remembers insults!), put a drop of the mixture in more water, succuss, rinse, repeat until you have a 30C dilution. This is going to make you a genius! Muhahahaha!
More seriously (?) I wonder how many athletes use homeopathic doping. Given the prevalence of belief in homeopathy, that it is 100% certain not to be detectable and that (strangely) homeopathic remedies never have any negative side effects, I would suspect it is a widespread practice. What does WADA do about it? After all, it is just as corrosive to the spirit of sport as real doping, it is unfair that some people use it but not others and the placebo effect might even give an advantage.
I really wonder if people who believe in homeopathy ever dilute anything in their normal lives... oh, silly me, that kind of common sense experience doesn't apply to medicine! If there is something that annoys me it is compartmentalising one's life into domains that are mutually inconsistent and then refusing to even consider this to be a problem.
Posted by Anders3 at April 22, 2008 02:08 AM