I often read this kind of statement in articles about homeopathy: “They claim that a smaller amount is therapeutically stronger.” There are two problems with this kind of statement.
One, it’s not the smaller amount that counts. What counts for healing is 1) the similarity and 2) the succussion. Why shaking the remedy during the dilution process matters I don’t know. But I do know that a small amount alone does not produce the effect. Where the small amount does count is in avoiding toxicity, which makes it safe and avoids negative side effects. But the similarity is the most important factor, not the amount or lack of amount.
Two, “stronger” is the wrong word to use with homeopathic remedies. A homeopathic remedy should not be considered stronger than a toxic dose of a substance. I would rather say something like “more profound” or “acts more deeply.” It’s like comparing a bulldozer and a song. Which is stronger? A bulldozer can knock your house down, but a song can have a profound effect on people, maybe even change the world in the extreme. A bulldozer can’t do that. But I wouldn’t say the song is “stronger” that a bulldozer.
That’s the real problem with statements like “smaller is stronger.” It comes from a materialistic place, where the quantity of both the amount and the force is what matters most. Homeopathy is better thought of as information. It behaves like a kind of information to the body’s control system. With information, it’s not about quantity so much as quality that counts.
Jan Scholten compared homeopathic remedies to CDs or DVDs. If you grind them up, two DVDs are chemically the same. And a small plastic disk isn’t so strong. However, what is on that DVD could possibly have a profound affect on you, if it’s the right information. Just like with homeopathy, the information on a DVD would have different effects on different individuals.
Comments:
Can you point us to any published research that demonstrates a clear increase in “profoundness” with increased “succussion”?
Or for that matter, any good data to show that succussion is indeed different from mere dilution? (Note: Rustum Roy’s experiments failed to take into account different sources for the base solvents ethanol).
As for CDs. There is a clear and unambiguous test to separate CD with music on and blank ones. You play them. No such reliable test exists for homeopathic pills - you could pass the quackometer challenge easily if this was so.
The reason for this is easy. CDs have been mechanically engineered to contain patterns of pits that encode music and rely on elaborate machinery to interpret the pattern of grooves. This is possible due to the carefully selected properties of layered plastics and films. Liquid water contains no such properties for the persistent storage of information or the human body any mechanism for reading and decoding any such data (or ‘similarity’) if it existed. Anyone who can show otherwise would make the scientific breakthrough of the century. Until then, it is parsimonious to believe homeopathy is just placebo - that is what the data says.
Do you see why people might be sceptical?
DVDs, homeopathy. It’s a metaphor. Explaining how something could deeply affect you even though it’s small in quantity and not literally strong. Don’t get so hung up on the metaphor.
I’m not offering any proof here, just saying that “smaller amount makes it stronger” isn’t right. It is neither accurate nor is it a good metaphorical example.
And yes, I can see why people are skeptical. I remember well being skeptical myself. I’m not asking anybody not to be. My complaint is that when I read a description or criticism of homeopathy, it’s often has it wrong, either intentionally or out of ignorance.
Could you post a reference to where this has been tested? It would be great to compare results between succussed and non-succussed remedies.
There is a big mix out there, and there’s lots of different things going on, and there is not one way that was intended to be the right way. Just like there’s not one color or one flower or one vegetable or one fingerprint. There is not one that is to be the right one over all others. The variety is what fosters the creativity. And so you say, “Okay, I accept that there’s lots of variety, but I don’t like to eat cucumbers.” Don’t eat cucumbers. But don’t ask them to be eliminated and don’t condemn those who eat them. Don’t stand on corners waving signs trying to outlaw the things that you don’t like. Don’t ruin your life by pushing against. Instead, say, “I choose this instead. This does please me.”
Well, yes. Because there isn’t a small amount. There’s no amount at all. (Of course, there’s no effect either, but I can’t see you agreeing as readily with that.)
The reason people pick on this is partly because it goes against what we generally experience (a strange property in a homeopathic claim, given that homeopaths usually value experience over evidence), i.e., that dilution makes things weak, but also because if there was a “memory” effect in water, then repeatedly diluting and shaking that water would be exactly the kind of thing that would make the memory go away. That’s how these things always work. Entropy, dontchaknow?
Saying “it’s not the dilution; it’s the succussion” is like saying “it’s not saying abracadabra that makes it work; it’s my pointy hat”. It doesn’t make it any less silly.
I think the smaller amount is at best safer but not necessarily the best.
If I seem silly, you seem sloppy. I say something like, “People get better when I say abracadabra.” And then you go around saying, “That guy is so silly. He thinks he cures people with his pointy hat.”
Criticize accurately. You know, be like a scientist.
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