> Who cares? Homeopathy is largely harmless, Not if someone is relying on it (or other 'harmless' cures like faith healing) to treat their cancer, or their chi

> Who cares? Homeopathy is largely harmless, Not if someone is relying on it (or other 'harmless' cures like faith healing) to treat their cancer, or their children's cancer, instead of something that will actually work it's not. Nor is it harmless if they have a contagious condition that they spread around (and you catch!) under the assumption that they've already been 'cured'. Nor is it harmless even if it's just emptying their wallet. > Unless something goes seriously wrong, an extreme dilution is not going to have the same devastating effect as an untreated serious condition Which I'd wager you'd agree happens more often than homeopathy goes seriously right, even ignoring the fool patients, parents, and caregivers who might leave serious conditions effectively untreated on account of believing in snake oil. Not ignoring them, this was reported two days ago: https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/cdc-homeopathic-healing-bracelet-poisons-baby-with-high-levels-of-lead/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2017/09/cdc-homeopathic-heal... > in which case can anyone except the charlatan who convinced them really be blamed? Some would argue that the society which stood idly by and refused to oppose such charlatans, if not to blame, is at least some kind of low trust, everyone for themselves, shitty kind of society. Especially if it can identify who is to blame, and still does nothing. Government regulation is not the only tool of opposition. James Randi has given some good talks to help fight the ignorance they exploit with knowledge. (EDIT: His TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Z7KeNCi7g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0Z7KeNCi7g .) And there's some arguments that can be made that true freedom requires freedom to do stupid, counterproductive, self harming shit (although that's not the argument you're making.) TL;DR: I disagree with you on your stance of how harmless homeopathy supposedly is.