Being indistinguishable from a placebo is equivalent to "as powerful as your mind," though. Which is to say, if your mind can't cure cancer, then neither can homeopathy. Isn't that pretty close to demonstrating it doesn't work?

maybe, but I think you are assuming that we can, scientifically or otherwise, distinguish (categorize) everything that is real. I'm inclined to believe that this is not possible. In that case indistinguishability becomes equivalent to saying nothing at all in scientific terms. The arguments in these kinds of articles have no choice but to become very tedious, mainly focusing on how people are getting ripped off, they cannot determine why homeopathic cures operate the same way as placebos--or not, which is the crux of the homeopathic argument.

> I'm inclined to believe that this is not possible.

That's the most ignorant thing I've read all day.

Wow, I didn't realize that I would get downvoted here. Let's see if I can explain myself.

Consider a few examples of things that science cannot distinguish:

* The speed and position of an electron cloud ensemble. * The moment a radioactive particle will decay

Anyways, my point was that homeopathy stories like the one we are talking about revolve around this formula:

1) peer reviewed studies show that homeopathy works as a placebo 2) ordinary people don't understand science 3) people are getting ripped off!

For me the interesting stuff is in #1. The debate over homeopathy is epistemological, over how we can know things. I have not seen any scientific research on how homeopathic works, or does not work, in the same way as a placebo. Anything less than this and the "rational" argument becomes "just don't take it because it's a placebo". Which is not a reason to cease taking homeopathic products, because doctors _prescribe_ placebos, and I have never seen an article like this that attacks doctors who prescribe placebos.

http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/news/20081023/50percent...

A doctor believing he has no legitimate treatment for a specific condition choosing to lead the patient to believe they are being treated is easy to distinguish from a fraud marketing magic water. The doctor is unlikely to choose the placebo over a legitimate treatment. The fraud doesn't care if there is a legitimate treatment.

#1 isn't interesting because placebos don't work. By definition. "[A] simulated or otherwise medically ineffectual treatment, per Wikipedia. If a trial of a medicine works as well as a placebo, that means it does not work.

Placebos do "work", after a fashion, which is part of why they are used as a control rather than nothing being given to the control group (helping to assure blinding of participants, both subjects and experimenters, is also a factor.)

In fact, different mechanisms of placebo delivery "work" to different degrees (in many cases, injection-based placebos "work" better than ingestion-based.)

That's the placebo effect, not the placebo itself.

This is as simple as I can explain it.

1) People test a new medicine. 2) That medicine does no better than placebo. 3) That medicine does not work and the makers go back to the drawing board.

They don't sit around and wonder why that medicine "works", because it doesn't. Nor do they sell it as medicine, or claim it is effective, because it isn't. Homeopathy is no more interesting than every single failed medicine plus every single non-medical substance a person can put in their mouth.

Right. I perhaps wasn't sufficiently clear that I wasn't disagreeing with you in substance.

You could make this argument about anything, how about this a new medical treatment that cures everything, what you do is bang your head against a wall every day. It wont be more effective than a placebo, but some people will get better.