This is so sad.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/05/2590294.htm

For those who don't know about homeopathy, it's a belief that water retains memory. So you can place a medical substance in water, dilute it millions of times until it's basically just water again and prescribe it as 'alternative medicine'. Practitioners depend on anecdotal (rather than experimental) evidence and the few attempts to gain scientific credibility through proper peer reviewed, experimental testing has failed miserably as no evidence has EVER been found that it actually works.

The process by which homeopathic 'medicine' (and I am loathe to use that term) is created is called potentization, which involves diluting and shaking the container - there are special implements they use to do this. They have a 'scale' for dilution. All this adds to the percieved credibility of homeopathy (although to me it smacks of showmanship rather than science).

And despite all this, homeopaths continue to argue that they have scientific validity (often falling back to arguing the 'placebo' effect, which kind of suggests that they are knowingly selling things that don't do what they say they will) and are supported by health funds like NIB.

And it hurts people. Read this story and remember it. Please, please, please don't put your faith in this rubbish. I hate seeing what it does to people.