Homeopathic claptrap

[sawyl]

Todays Guardian features an impressively poor article in defence of homeopathy. The basic trajectory — I don't think it's coherent enough to deserve be called an argument — of the piece seems to be as follows:

1. I was ill. I took a homeopathic solution. I got better. Ergo it works.
2. Maybe you think I'm a crank. I'm not. See? I'm bashing someone even crankier to prove my non-crankiness.
3. Mainstream medicine has an absurd need for "proof" — see what I did there with the sneer quotes? — and is so scared that it's trying to suppress the truth.
4. It thinks that Disease A is caused by B and can be cured by C. This is not how things work.
5. I don't have a sore throat for the same reason as you. Thus we cannot be cured by a simple remedy like C. We need a homeopath to understand everything we are before we can be cured.
6. This explains why the evidence based trials of homeopathy fail. After all, if it didn't work, why would so many people claim that it did?
7. Having firmly asserted my view, I can be magnanimous and accept that the placebo effect might be involved. But that's not the whole picture. Oh no.
8. I've read some articles nano-technology. They told me that very small things don't behave in the same way as big things.
9. I'm going to put this next to a question begging statement which suggests that this might have a bearing on how homeopathic dilutions work.
10. I'm now going to cross my fingers and hope you don't spot the rather obvious lacuna between the two paragraphs.
11. I read New Scientist. I know about the memory of water. How can you not believe me?
12. Look, I know I've just said that evidence based trials are worthless, but I'm now going to say I'd like to see more research. Provided it gives the right answers. Answers that don't undermine the millions of people who say that it has worked for them.

If this is the best the pro lobby can do, is it any wonder that anyone with a GCSE in science can hand them their heads?