Desrtopa comments on The Irrationality Game - Less Wrong

38 Post author: Will_Newsome 03 October 2010 02:43AM

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Comment author: Desrtopa 15 December 2010 04:40:03PM *  3 points [-]

It's worse than that. Water having a memory, spiritual or otherwise, of things it used to carry, would be downright simple compared to what homeopathy posits. Considering everything all the water on Earth has been through, you'd expect it to be full of memories of all sorts of stuff; not just the last homeopathic remedy you put in it. What homeopathy requires is that water has a memory of things that it has held, which has to be primed by a specific procedure, namely thumping the container of water against a leather pad stuffed with horse hair while the solute is still in it so the water will remember it. The process is called "succussion" and the inventor of homeopathy thought that it made his remedies stronger. Later advocates though, realized the implications of the "water has a memory" hypothesis, and so rationalized it as necessary.

Comment author: Psy-Kosh 15 December 2010 06:53:37PM 1 point [-]

Wow. I hadn't even heard of the very specific leather pad thing. (I've heard it has to be shaken in specific ways, but not that)

How is it that no matter how stupid I think it is, I keep hearing things that makes homeopathy even more stupid than I previously thought?