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This study claims to have "observed biological effects conflicting with the assumption that Stannum metallicum 30X is identical to placebo".

I was always under the impression that homeopathy is a concept which is not scientifically proven, and 30X dilutions (1 part in 1030) likely has none of the original substance (i.e. tin).

However, this study seems claim that this is wrong.

Does a 30X dilution have the effects claim?

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    Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.
    – Oddthinking
    Commented Oct 19, 2019 at 15:49

1 Answer 1

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Short answer: No this paper does not prove homeopathy works.

It certainly has the form of a scientific paper but frankly appears to be obsfucatory and/or trivial. The vast majority of the paper is about demonstrating that lots of variations in experimental methodology do not introduce confounding effects.

The experiment is looking at whether or not using homeopathy affects the appearance of crystals of Copper Chloride that form when the water evaporate from it, which obviously has no clear clinical signifiance. The experiment first germinates seeds in the water for several days but as the commentary acknowledge this isn't really very important to the experiment, so it isn't really about any BIOLOGICAL effect at all - just looking for a CHEMICAL one, which seems at odds with the homeopathy theory that "like treats like".

It demonstrates quite convincingly that conducting this experiment in different labs, with a differnet sources of homepathic products, that may have been exposoed to heat or radio waves do not themseves introduce treatment effects.

They claim that one of the metrics of how the crystals look shows a significant (P<5%) difference between the homeopathic and control solutions but

(a) the effect size is negligible and

(b) they test multiple outcomes without any hypothesis as to what differeneces they will see - and if you do that repeatedly eventually you will get a 'significant' result by chance.

But you have to read and absorb much verbiage to determine that the significant results are not important and the important results are not significant.

So the long answer also is: No.

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    No problem. This kind of bogus science really pisses me off, and the more people who have chapter-and-verse on specifically what is wrong with it the harder it is for these people to use it rhetorically in their arguments. Commented Oct 25, 2019 at 10:09
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    Homeopathy does not and can not work. There is not even plausibility. This is a fire that won't go out. Damn these "papers" that keep this charade going. What a waste of time and money to those taken in.
    – geoO
    Commented Oct 25, 2019 at 18:12
  • Thankfully the senior management of the UK NHS seem to have decided that enough is enough. Not long ago they have taken steps to stop the NHS spending money on homeopathy, and now are seeking to prevent them having spurious 'government approved' registration. Commented Oct 29, 2019 at 19:27

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