We can always use more case studies of insanity that aren't religion, right?
Well, Miracle Mineral Supplement is my new go-to example for Bad Things happening to people with low epistemic standards. "MMS" is a supposed cure for everything ranging from the common cold to HIV to cancer. I just saw it recommended in another Facebook thread to someone who was worried about malaria symptoms.
It's industrial-strength bleach. Literally just bleach. Usually drunk, sometimes injected, and yes, it often kills you. It is every bit as bad as it sounds if not worse.
This is beyond Poe's Law. Medieval blood draining via leeches was far more of an excusable error than this, they had far less evidence it was a bad idea. I think if I was trying to guess what was the dumbest alternative medicine on the planet, I still would not have guessed this low. My brain is still not pessimistic enough about human stupidity.
You may have a point. There's a crowd of people who do not understand the most basic of science, who are susceptible to MMS for the same reasons they are susceptible to say Astrology. However that's not the only thing at work here. Part of it is that people often find it plausible that ivory-tower science (with all of its obscure focuses and elaborate, often highly beaurocratic needs) has overlooked a simple solution that maverick scientists and amateur experimenters (desperate to cure stuff like malaria and cancer, and willing to try anything, including bleach) didn't miss. Its not an anti-science viewpoint at all, but a skepticism of mainstream methods of achieving the scientific ideal of rational empirical observation.
On another note: It's strange to me that vaccines are usually attacked by the same people who promote homeopathy, and that skeptics who promote vaccines usually take the position that homeopathy is bunk. The term "homeopathy" does not etymologically have anything to do with how dillute the drug is, rather it means "like the disease" and refers to the ancient doctrine that "like cures like". A vaccine actually illustrates this principle quite well: a virus is rendered impotent by some means, but still stimulates the symptoms, and in particular the immune response for the disease. If there was ever a proof positive that homeopathy works, it is vaccination.
It's surprising that skeptics have been content to allow the con artists their ridiculous premise that "homeopathy" somehow equals or implies the hyperdillution of the active ingredient. Instead they should have insisted on etymological purity and pointed out that real science has developed real homeopathic ("like cures like") approaches that work well, and it is not by hyperdillution or special mystical properties of things at all, but via rational and empirical studies like biochemistry, virology, and immunology.
This just shows that etymology is a poor way to determine what words actually mean in the real word. Words have no meaning apart from what people mean when they say the words or listen to them.
Etymological purity has no practical value.