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Frequently asked questions

Some common points of argument are addressed in the FAQ below, which represents the consensus of editors here. Please remember that this page is only for discussing Wikipedia's encyclopedia article about Homeopathy.

To view an explanation to the answer, click the [show] link to the right of the question.

Q1: Should material critical of homeopathy be in the article? (Yes.)

A1: Yes. Material critical of homeopathy must be included in the article. The articles on Wikipedia include information from all significant points of view. This is summarized in the policy pages which can be accessed from the Neutral point of view policy. This article strives to conform to Wikipedia policies, which dictate that a substantial fraction of articles in fringe areas be devoted to mainstream views of those topics.

Q2: Should material critical of homeopathy be in the lead? (Yes.)

A2: Yes. Material critical of homeopathy belongs in the lead section. The lead must contain a summary of all the material in the article, including the critical material. This is described further in the Lead section guideline.

Q3: Is the negative material in the article NPOV? (Yes.)

A3: Yes. Including negative material is part of achieving a neutral article. A neutral point of view does not necessarily equate to a sympathetic point of view. Neutrality is achieved by including all points of view – both positive and negative – in rough proportion to their prominence.

Q4: Does Wikipedia consider homeopathy a fringe theory? (Yes.)

A4: Yes. Homeopathy is described as a fringe medical system in sources reliable to make the distinction.^[1] This is defined by the Fringe theories guideline, which explains: We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field of study.

Since the collective weight of peer-reviewed studies does not support the efficacy of homeopathy, it departs significantly enough from the mainstream view of science to be considered a fringe theory.

References

^ Jonas, WB; Ives, JA (February 2008). "Should we explore the clinical utility of hormesis". Human & Experimental Toxicology. 27 (2): 123–127. PMID 18480136.

Q5: Should studies that show that homeopathy does not work go into the article? (Yes.)

A5: Yes. Studies that show that homeopathy does not work are part of a full treatment of the topic and should go into the article. Wikipedia is not the place to right great wrongs. Non-experts have suggested that all the studies that show homeopathy does not work are faulty studies and are biased, but this has not been borne out by the mainstream scientific community.

Q6: Should another article called "Criticism of homeopathy" be created? (No.)

A6: No. Another article called "Criticism of homeopathy" should not be created. This is called a "POV fork" and is discouraged.

Q7: Should alleged proof that homeopathy works be included in the article? (No.)

A7: No. Alleged proof that homeopathy works should not be included in the article. That is because no such proof has come from reliable sources. If you have found a reliable source, such as an academic study, that you think should be included, you can propose it for inclusion on the article’s talk page. Note that we do not have room for all material, both positive and negative. We try to sample some of each and report them according to their prominence. Note also that it is not the job of Wikipedia to convince those people who do not believe homeopathy works, nor to dissuade those who believe that it does work, but to accurately describe how many believe and how many do not believe and why.

Q8: Should all references to material critical of homeopathy be put in a single section in the article? (No.)

A8: No. Sources critical of homeopathy should be integrated normally in the course of presenting the topic and its reception, not shunted into a single criticism section. Such segregation is generally frowned upon as poor writing style on Wikipedia.

Q9: Should the article mention that homeopathy might work by some as-yet undiscovered mechanism? (No.)

A9: No. The article should not mention that homeopathy might work by some as-yet undiscovered mechanism. Wikipedia is not a place for original research or speculation.

Q10: Is the article with its negative material biased? (No.)

A10: No. The article with its negative material is not biased. The article must include both positive and negative views according to the policies of Wikipedia.

Q11: Should the article characterize homeopathy as a blatant fraud and quackery? (No.)

A11: No. Inflammatory language does not serve the purpose of an encyclopedia; it should only be done if essential to explain a specific point of view and must be supported from a reliable source. Wikipedia articles must be neutral and reflect information found in reliable sources. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and not a consumer guide, so while scientific sources commonly characterise homeopathy as nonsense, fraud, pseudoscience and quackery - and the article should (and does) report this consensus - ultimately the reader should be allowed to draw his/her own conclusions.

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This article is written in British English with Oxford spelling (colour, realize, organization, analyse; note that -ize is used instead of -ise) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

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Homeopathy has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
September 14, 2006	Good article nominee	Not listed
September 27, 2007	Good article nominee	Listed
October 8, 2007	Good article reassessment	Delisted
October 13, 2007	Good article reassessment	Delisted
October 19, 2007	Peer review	Reviewed
October 25, 2007	Good article nominee	Listed
February 9, 2008	Peer review	Reviewed
March 2, 2009	Peer review	Reviewed
April 4, 2009	Featured article candidate	Not promoted
November 2, 2012	Good article reassessment	Delisted
June 11, 2020	Good article nominee	Not listed
October 29, 2020	Good article nominee	Listed
Current status: Good article

Skepticism Top‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Skepticism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of science, pseudoscience, pseudohistory and skepticism related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SkepticismWikipedia:WikiProject SkepticismTemplate:WikiProject SkepticismSkepticism articles
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Homeopathy (inactive)

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Homeopathy, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.HomeopathyWikipedia:WikiProject HomeopathyTemplate:WikiProject HomeopathyHomeopathy articles

Alternative medicine

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Citizendium Porting (inactive)

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Ideal sources for Wikipedia's health content are defined in the guideline Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) and are typically review articles. Here are links to possibly useful sources of information about Homeopathy.

PubMed provides review articles from the past five years (limit to free review articles)
The TRIP database provides clinical publications about evidence-based medicine.
Other potential sources include: Centre for Reviews and Dissemination and CDC

This article has been mentioned by multiple media organizations:

David Gorski (March 6, 2023). "Ivermectin booster Dr. Tess Lawrie goes all-in for homeopathy for COVID and long COVID". Science-Based Medicine. Retrieved March 13, 2023. Lawrie, as is the case with most quacks, is not happy with Wikipedia. Indeed, she starts out by looking at Wikipedia: "Let's start with the lies and misinformation about homeopathy. Here's how the internet's propaganda factory Wikipedia currently defines it:"
Syeda ShahBano Ijaz (29 May 2023). "How Conflicts and Population Loss Led to the Rise of English Wikipedia's Credibility". American Political Science Association. Retrieved 30 May 2023. Take the example of the Wikipedia page on homeopathy: from 2001-2006, the lead on the page described homeopathy as a "controversial system of alternative medicine." From 2006-2013, the content changed to mentioning that homeopathy has been "regarded as pseudoscience" and sharing that there is a "lack of convincing scientific evidence confirming its efficacy." By 2015, this description had stabilized to "homeopathy is a pseudoscience."

Semi-protected edit request on 29 March 2024

Asked and answered PepperBeast (talk)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

I came across some information about the etymology of the word 'homeopathic' in relation to the practice of magick. I would like to add the following. Edit as you wish.

In The Golden Bough, by Sir James Frazer, the word ‘homeopathy’ is the name used for 1 of three categories of magic - the others being ‘sympathetic’ and ‘contagious.’ According to Fraser, homeopathic magic is the principle that like produces like. An example of this would be the harming or healing of a poppet (sometimes known as a voodoo doll). However, the modern production of homeopathic remedies is more similar to the Law of Contact, or Contagious magic, because it is based on the idea that something that has been in contact with a thing carries the properties of that thing.

Modern practitioners of magick (spelled that way to differentiate it from fairy-tale or theatrical magic) can create magickal remedies that are just as effective (or not, depending on one's point of view). An example of this would be using a relic of a saint to request healing or a miracle, or using a lock of hair or fingernail clippings to cast a spell of healing on the person they were part of. Because contagious magic can be done with items readily available, there is usually no need to spend money on it, unless one chooses to. Of course, the modern producers of homeopathic remedies don’t advertise them as magic, but as medicine, and sell them to people who believe that they are based on science. Were they to sell them legitimately as magickal ointments in a shop catering to magickal practitioners, they might be able to charge as much or more for them, but of course they would reach a much smaller audience.

^[1] ^[2] ^[3] MorgaineBrigid (talk) 11:55, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Not done. The Golden Bough is not a reliable source. Homeopathy may involve magical thinking, but we're not veering off into "magick". PepperBeast (talk) 12:16, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Please read Wikipedia:Reliable sources and Wikipedia:No original research. While Frazer's Golden Bough is of historical significance, it has little relevance to the topic of this article, which pre-dates Frazer's extension (probably, per more recent critiques, over-extension) of the term 'homeopathy' to broader contexts than we are discussing here. As for the rest, Wikipedia is under no circumstances going to suggest that 'magick' is effective. This is a tertiary source - an encyclopaedia - and as such bases content on secondary scholarship (ideally, academia), rather than the unverifiable claims of homeopaths, or the practitioners of 'magick'. AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:19, 29 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ James Fraser, The Golden Bough, chapter 3, section III. From https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3623/pg3623-images.html. Retrieved 11:45am utc, March 29th, 2024.
^ https://cdop.org/2013/11/what-are-relicsand-why-are-they-important/
^ https://occult-world.com/hair-and-nails/

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

page npov

Nothing to do here, closing per WP:FORUM. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:50, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

this page has been rewritten curtesy by the "guerilla sceptics" -- they even stupidly brag about it in recruiting events .. source rob heatherly (a list of the 1000+ rewritten wp pages would be nice) Ebricca (talk) 11:54, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Mate, what the heck are you talking about? This page hasn't had a major re-write in the maybe fifteen years it's been on my watchlist. PepperBeast (talk) 12:08, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

another source is on my talk page as yt links are shunned - in a way it is a well known fact to shift perception via intro parts of disliked topics - science(tm) for the win - (interesting that the comment is allowed to live here but not on the ideological bias page) Ebricca (talk) 16:31, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This page follows NPOV because Wikipedia relies on high quality medical secondary sources to determine scientific consensus. And the reliable sources are very clear about homeopathy.

Further, insinuations that editors are attempting to "shift perception" can be construed as a personal attack.

Finally, your wording is... very poor. I assume English is not your primary language. In that case, you might want to try editing the wiki for your native language. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:43, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

sure english is not my primary language - so calling it poor - fine but also ad hominem .. "shifting perception" is the expression the group brags about - really not my words Ebricca (talk) 17:03, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

This article has frequently been discussed as an example of a page that outsiders (usually, but not always, homeopaths with an obvious agenda) have claimed in one way or another to be 'biased'. Discussed by Wikipedia contributors generally, not the very small minority who consider themselves to be 'guerrilla sceptics'. And as far as the broader community of Wikipedia contributors are concerned, it conforms to the policies, arrived at through consensus over very many years, in regard to neutrality, appropriate sourcing etc. If it is 'biased' it is so because it matches the 'biases' inherent in an encyclopaedia that per policy prefers science and academic sources to conspiracy theories and magical thinking. You may not personally like such policy-induced 'bias', but it would appear that readers in general do, considering how often they return to Wikipedia as a reference source. Anyone is of course free to start their own alternative to Wikipedia, or find one of the many existing ones, and read or contribute to that instead. Meanwhile, our encyclopaedia, our rules. Wikipedia has its faults certainly, but not caving in to the demands of magic woo-water peddlers to help them sell their diluted-to-nothingness 'remedies' isn't one of them AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:28, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Also, read ad hominem. It does not mean what you think it means. --Hob Gadling (talk) 17:51, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

.. :) .. i read the page .. personal attack - means - ad hominem .. but sure i can be completely wrong .. maybe to say "also" by itself already is a "tu quoque" fallacy .. :) .. Ebricca (talk) 18:09, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Mathematically impossible statement

The article contains this statement: "A 200C dilution of duck liver, marketed under the name Oscillococcinum, would require 10^320 universes worth of molecules to contain just one original molecule in the final substance." This does not make any sense. For one, the volume of diluent would have to be (literally) astronomically large. For two, I'm pretty sure no known scientific process achieves this level of purity. If homeopaths in fact claim to achieve this level of purity, I suppose that's just another false claim: but I don't think it should be treated as a fact. Andrewbrink (talk) 02:13, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It's supposed to be earth atmoshpheres not "universes", I think. — Usedtobecool ☎️ 03:02, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's universes. The math is supposed to show how aburd homeopaths' claims are. Of course, homeopaths do not do the diluting all at once: take one "duck liver molecule" (whatever that may be) and 10^320 universes of water. They do it step by step, and in summary it amounts to that. --Hob Gadling (talk) 04:42, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

That's precisely the point, though: no human can perform a dilution "step by step" that achieves anything even remotely resembling 1 molecule in 1 galaxy's worth, much less 1 universe's worth. This 10^320 universes must come from bad math or some mistake somewhere. If the idea is to discredit homeopathy, it would be best not to do so with logically impossible math / physics. Andrewbrink (talk) 14:46, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Demonstrating that something is mathematically impossible seems to me to be a darned good way to discredit it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:50, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The maths itself is correct - a 200C dilution is genuinely that small a resulting number of molecules. And it's actually not that difficult to dilute something to that level - it's only a 1:100 dilution performed 200 times. If you were diluting in bigger amounts of solvent you could do it very quickly. Black Kite (talk) 15:02, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If this is all WP:OR, it doesn’t need to be included, mathematically sound or not. It’s like refuting creationism with the law of conservation of mass— you don’t need to prove something with no basis in science, that clearly is incompatible with science on a macroscopic scale (it doesn’t work) is also incompatible with science on a microscopic scale. That should be obvious. Dronebogus (talk) 15:49, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It cites a source. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:03, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It still seems like kind of a strange statement to include for the same reason I already described. Does this help the reader understand the topic or just double down on the fact that homeopathy obviously has no basis in science in a weird, overly technical way? Dronebogus (talk) 16:11, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

[Jonas2008-1] Jonas, WB; Ives, JA (February 2008). "Should we explore the clinical utility of hormesis". Human & Experimental Toxicology. 27 (2): 123–127. PMID 18480136.

[2] James Fraser, The Golden Bough, chapter 3, section III. From https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/3623/pg3623-images.html. Retrieved 11:45am utc, March 29th, 2024.

[3] ttps://cdop.org/2013/11/what-are-relicsand-why-are-they-important/

[4] ttps://occult-world.com/hair-and-nails/

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