It’s not hard to describe just how silly homeopathy is — after all, diluting a substance in water until nothing is left is clearly not a great way to base a medicinal practice. Unless you’re trying to cure dehydration. But if describing homeopathy’s silliness is easy, doing it well is another matter; most people don’t have a very good sense of scale when it comes to very big and very small numbers (I guess numbers that dwarf even a trillion weren’t necessary for our ancestors on the plains of Africa, so we never evolved a way to grasp them).
However, Steve DeGroof at MadArtLab (the same guy who does the skeptic web comic Tree Lobsters) has found a way to put homeopathy into perspective: use Felicia Day!
[You really must click through to see the whole thing.]
Well, pictures of her, anyway, and the concept of Felicia’s uniqueness. This is actually a pretty good analogy: you can put Felicia into various categories (like women named Felicia, redheads, guest stars on "House"*, and so on) and compare that number to how much homeopathy dilutes various solutions.
I think this method really works! I love how he used Marian Call and Adam Savage in the redhead category, too.
Anyway, I hope this gets picked up far and wide by the geek ‘net. The more people who grasp the nonsense of homeopathy, the better. After all, there’s nothing to it.
* Or, for that matter, cast members of SyFy channel’s show "Eureka" when it comes back soon — I can’t wait to see it!Tip o’ the 100C solution to reddit.
Just a reminder, are you keeping up with Len Peralta’s Geek A Week podcast? Since I last mentioned it he’s interviewed Felicia Day, Bill Prady (co-executive producer of The Big Bang Theory), Penn & Teller, and Neil Gaiman! These are lots of fun to listen to, and I urge any nerds like me out there to sign on. Len is also a gifted artist and draws trading cards of all the geeks — the one here is of Felicia, of course. They’re really fun to look through. Collect ‘em all!
I happen to know it was Len’s birthday last week, too. Happy Birthday Len!
Regular readers know I have an marginally unhealthy crush on Felicia Day. Of course, so do millions of other people, so she’s probably relatively safe from me.
Hey! That was funny! Like, really funny! Lots of inside jokes for Felicia’s fans, too ("Is this your first time doing an internet video, Miss Day?") A lot of times videos like this are just painful, but this one is actually really good. Felicia is great, and the Sean Astin stuff cracked me up.
And I think someone’s been reading my book… OK, probably not. But the way she talked about all the astronomy was very natural and smooth, so I just know deep in her heart Felicia’s harboring a strong and undeniable love for astronomer. I mean astronomy. Yes! Astronomy! Of course that’s what I meant!
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.
The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking, movie reviews, and all that) can be found here.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
"If things worked the way I wanted them to, any reporter about to do another 'sensational' story on deadly meteors would consult this volume, and bang! common sense would find its way into the news. How strange would that world be?" -- Adam Savage, Mythbusters
"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating." -- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
