SaveYourself.ca • Sensible advice for aches, pains & injuries
a micro article
Homeopathy is a 200-year-old medical philosophy that has been thoroughly debunked, and survives today thanks to wishful thinking, ignorance, and because it is too useless to be dangerous. It is the flagship in the alternative medicine fleet: the most popular, profitable, and absurd of all snake oils.
Most people have no idea just how strange homeopathy is. The deal-breaker for many consumers is the discovery that it’s not an “herbal” or “natural” remedy, but a “magical” one, based on a principle that reeks of flaky physics and old-timey snake oil flamboyance—much farther out in left field than herbs. Some people, of course, are quite happy citing quantum physics to explain alternative medicine, but you really have to be a card-carrying new age sort to go there. For most people, that crosses a line.
But they have to find out first! Fortunately, doctors, scientists and skeptics are unanimously and harshly critical of homeopathy, and have published many good quality critical reviews. For instance, see my own article about homeopathic arnica — the most popular of all homeopathic products, intended to treat inflammatory pain.
Micro articles or metanotes are short summaries, 300 words or less, of well-defined topics or key points that tend to come up when discussing pain and therapy science. They can stand on their own, but they are also often included dynamically in articles all over SaveYourself.ca. So, for instance, you might see this metanote somewhere in the main text of a larger article, or in a footnote. There aren’t very many of these … for now. In time I hope to have about a hundred of these little article “snacks.” Here’s what’s available so far…