HOWTO: Be a homeopathic bioterrorist
- Buy a carton of orange juice and 30 1-gallon jugs of water.
- Place one drop of orange juice into one of the jugs of water. Shake.
- Take one drop of that dilution and place it into the next jug of water. Shake.
- Take one drop of that dilution and place it into the next jug of water. Shake.
- Repeat the process until you reach the last jug of water.
- Take a drop of that final dilution and place it into your municipality’s water supply.
- Everyone gets scurvy!
Frequently Asked Questions
WTF?
According to homeopathy, diluting a substance makes it more potent. While traditional homeopathy creates medicine by diluting harmful subtances, we can apply the same principles to weaponize healthy substances. Since orange juice has lots of vitamin C, a homeopathic dilution of orange juice would induce a crippling vitamin C deficiency in anyone who drank it.
How does diluting something make it more powerful?
Because some guy in the eighteenth century decided it does.
How does diluting something make it have the opposite effect it normally does?
Because that same guy decided it does.
Neither of those makes any sense.
I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were in the pocket of Big Pharma, you soulless corporate shill.
I mean, at that level of dilution, it’s unlikely there’s even a single molecule of orange juice in the water.
So? There doesn’t have to be. The water remembers what was in it.
How does that work, exactly?
Dissolved silica from the container. Or aerosols that get mixed in during shaking. Or quantum entanglement. Or friction with a fancy-sounding name. Which one sounds the most sciency? Because it’s that one. I was just joking about those other ones. Though they’re also true. Even though they’re mutually contradictory.
Is there any scientific evidence any of those are actually the mechanism?
Sure! I totally know a guy who knows a guy who tried it, and it totally worked.
No, I mean is there any scientific evidence? You know, double-blind tests and controls and null hypotheses and everything.
Well, no, not with those kinds of tests. It’s well-known that double-blind tests don’t work for homeopathy.
Why is that?
Why, since well-controlled double-blind tests of homeopathy always fail to show any difference between homeopathic treatments and placebo! Since we know homeopathy is true (as you’ll recall, some guy in the eighteenth century decided it’s true), that proves double-blind tests don’t work. Besides, so-called “scientists” are also all in the pocket of Big Pharma, just because if homeopathy were true it would invalidate everything they “know” about chemistry and medicine.
Wait, aren’t there trace amounts of just about any water-soluble compound you can think of in tap water? Shouldn’t the water that comes out of my faucet cure every ailment known to man?
No, that’s stupid.
Why is that?
The water didn’t get shaken the right way.
So there’s a special way you’re supposed to shake the water now?
Apparently.
Are you just making all this up to defend the ridiculous idea that homeopathy actually works?
No.
How do I know you’re right?
You think selling bottled municipal tap water for $1 a bottle is a ripoff? Think of the margins on selling small amounts of water as medicine!
4 Responses
I sadly know someone who believes in homeopathy. Adding insult to injury she is going through med school. No matter how much I talked with her about it, FDA tested and approved medications are stupid and water with less than an atom of ginkgo biloba is better.
Also, assuming homeopathy does work, wouldn’t dilute orange juice still prevent scurvy? I think you should stick with your ha>
No, no, you see, when you dilute something, it becomes less effective at what it’s supposed to do. Sure, a “real” scientist would identify that’s just the well-known dose-response relationship, that more of a chemical will have more of an effect than less of a chemical.
But in homeopathy, it’s only the effect you normally associate with the compound that diminishes with dilution. The exact opposite effect gets stronger. Thus, homeopathic sleeping pills are based on heavily diluted caffeine. A homeopathic remedy to cure itching would be heavily diluted poison ivy. And so on.
One can only imagine how homeopathic birth control is prepared.
Also, fun fact: if you want to make a <, you need to type <. (And if you want to type <, you need to type &lt;. And so on.) You sound a bit like Trevor there at the end.
That was a fun fact. And an exceptionally useful one for when I want to type hacker like a leet idiot. Well, that plan backfired but on the plus side I sounded like Trevor, the vampire.
I think homeopathic birth control would be the one time where I would advocate an abstinence only program.
So I guess homeopathic birth control would be Stephen Colbert’s Formula 4.01 x 10-60?