1. The idea of the OP was precisely to highlight the research done by some eminent scientists in proving that homeopathy works.
And, as was pointed out, the accumulated review of the available data shows that it doesn't work. Those trials which have produced positive results have typically been either too small to be reliable or too poorly conducted to be reliable. (
http://www.cochrane.org/search/site/homeopathy)
2. Merely asserting that homeopathy does not work is blind skepticism.
Firstly, skepticism is inherently 'blind' - it's for the claimant to illuminate the evidence supporting their position. For homeopathy, that has still not been done. Secondly, it's not an 'assertion' - the evidence has consistently gone against homeopathy, and the methodology defies all known scientific principles.
3. Commenting against homeopathy is a matter of affiliation. Some people just want to be seen speaking against it regardless of whether they have actually had any experience with it at all.
Whereas some people support anything that's not the mainstream, for a variety of reasons. The motivations are irrelevant, it's the arguments that stand or fall on their own merits. The argument for homeopathy fails on the basis that, when tested, it fails to achieve anything more than a placebo.
4. Dismissing it as placebo is meaningless because no one knows how placebo actually works.
It's not meaningless. You don't need to know how placebo works to know that it does work. Equally, you don't need to know how homeopathy might work if it behaves exactly the same as a placebo in order to classify it as a placebo. Treatments that work outperform placebo, that's the basis of medical trials.
5. Infant and animal illnesses treated successfully prove that homeopathy cannot be just placebo.
No, they don't. There are any number of reasons why anecdotes of successful treatment (for any methodology) could be unrepresentative, that's why we conduct controlled trials. When we do, homeopathy doesn't work.
Dismissing these cases as due to confirmation bias on the part of parents and animal owners is a case of confirmation bias itself.
That's not what's being done. The anecdotes are being rejected because they're anecdotes - the methodological trials show that homeopathy doesn't work.
6. How homeopathy works is of secondary importance as long as it works.
Yes. It doesn't work. It's been repeatedly shown not to work.
And that fact has ample evidence in the form of millions/billions of satisfied patients around the world.
No, millions/billions of people support all sorts of bullshit - the argumentum ad populum is still a logical fallacy.
7. Some cases of research that try to establish that homeopathy does not work is clearly about confirmation bias.
Again, the motivation or the interpretation? Motivation doesn't matter, the data shows what it shows. The interpretation is open to scrutiny, and if anyone's seen confirmation bias in the published data they've not cited it - I'm sure you'll do so now, though, right?
And we have seen in cases like the Cholesterol controversy that clinical trials and medical opinion can be pretty messed up.
The problems with the clinical trials on Cholesterol are many and varied, ranging from the influence of vested interests through to poorly designed trials and the systematic evidence hiding of large pharmaceutical firms. Underlying the problem, though, isnt' that the treatments don't have the claimed effect (lowering cholesterol) but rather whether cholesterol is actually a reliable indicator of negative health outcomes in the first place.
That's not going to be an issue for homeopathy, given that it isn't limited to claiming efficacy for a singular condition or symptom.
O.
