The 10:23 Challenge 2011

Homeopathy - There's nothing in it.
Last year around this time I wrote about a campaign called '10:23'.
It was a campaign to raise awareness of the scam that is homeopathic "medicine" and to protest Boots' continued endorsement of homeopathy.

This year the campaign has expanded a lot and currently includes events in more than 50 cities in more than 20 countries (as far as I know there is no event in Denmark).
It will take place on the weekend of February 5-6. It culminates on February 6th at the QED conference in Manchester.
The 2011 challenge aims to further raise awareness and to inform the public that homeopathy is a scam and the "remedies" do not contain anything but sugar and water.

You can follow the campaign at www.1023.org.uk
Please help spread the word.

What is homeopathy?
In case you are wondering what homeopathy is I gave an explanation last year (you can see it here) and the official 10:23 site has an explanation here. I'll give a short explanation below as well.

But the essence of homeopathy is two-fold:
1) 'Like cures like' (law of similars)
2) Dilution of remedies (law of infinitesimals)

The first point is basically that whatever caused your illness will also cure it.
You got poisoned? Drink some poison.
Can't sleep? Have some caffeine.
Etc.
This is completely bollocks of course, but the homeopaths don't care.

The second point is the most commonly associated with homeopathy; extremely diluted solutions.
And by extremely I mean extreme beyond comprehension. The "remedies" are labelled with a number and either an X or a C.
X indicates a ten times dilution, C is 100. The number before the letter indicates the number of dilutions.
So a 9X dilution is diluted to 1/10th 9 times resulting in a solution which contains 1 billionth of the original substance.
9C is a 1/100th dilution 9 times or 1 billionth of a billionth.

Homeopathic remedies are often sold as 6C (1000th of a billionth of the original solution) or 30C.
At these levels of dilution there is NOTHING left of the original substance. They are selling water.

Yet the homeopaths claim that the more diluted the "remedy" is the more potent it is. Unlike normal people who knows that diluting something makes it weaker and less potent.

What's the harm?
The problem is that the scammers sell their water with claims of miraculous cures for pretty much any illness. And also with claims that 'Big Pharma' is trying to kill us all. So you have to stop taking "western" medicine (or conventional medicine) and start using homeopathy because there are no side effects and they can cure anything.
The harm is of course that people will follow this advice and end up killing/harming themselves and others. This has to be stopped and people must be informed that homeopathy has nothing in it.