This page discusses the contested conceptual questions surrounding homeopathy: from a scientific point of view, from philosophical and social perspectives, and historically, in their development since Hahnemann. All positions are to be set out, including those of the critics, and each in its strongest form.
The discourse is called “paradigmatic” because it is rarely about individual findings alone. The dispute usually concerns the assumptions that a science tacitly shares: which questions it considers meaningful, which methods it permits, and what it accepts as proof.
E.g.: whether a potency beyond the Avogadro limit can have an effect is a question for physics. Whether a study design that treats all participants the same way can test an individually prescribed remedy is a question of method. If questions of physics and questions of method are not kept apart, people easily talk past each other.
The topics of the controversy
This page conducts an open discourse. It shows where the positions diverge, what each of them relies on, and which assumptions are tacitly made from which perspective. The fields are broad and will be worked through step by step. Further fields may be added over time.
From a scientific point of view
- Plausibility of high potencies
- Evidence of efficacy and meta-analyses
- Placebo and context effects
- Fit between method and subject matter
From a philosophical perspective
- Paradigm and thought style
- The concept of science and demarcation
- Causality
- The general and the individual case
- Image of the human being
- Knowledge and its object
- The status of the similarity principle
From a social perspective
- Reimbursement by health insurers
- The additional qualification in homeopathy in postgraduate medical training
- Medicines law, registration and pharmacy-only status
- Media, sceptics’ organisations and professional associations
- The reality of healthcare provision
- Freedom of therapy and patient autonomy
In history
- Hahnemann’s criticism of the medicine of his time
- The Nuremberg salt trial of 1835
- The Flexner Report of 1910
- The investigations at the Reich Health Office in the 1930s
- The Marburg Declaration of 1992
- Disputes within homeopathy itself
How we present the controversy
- Every position in its strongest form. An argument that has only been refuted in its weakest version has not been refuted.
- Evidence checked against the original. We check quotations and figures against the source, not against a summary.
- The levels of the questions are kept apart: questions of fact, questions of method and questions of value.
- Statements about knowledge and statements about the object are kept separate. A statement about what we can know is not a statement about what exists. E.g.: that an effect could not be demonstrated in a study does not yet mean that it does not exist; that patients experience an improvement does not yet mean that the remedy brought it about.
- One test criterion for all sides. Does a statement name the conditions under which it would prove to be false? A fixed rule that no longer provides for this can no longer learn from experience. This applies to critics and supporters alike, and equally to doctrines within homeopathy.
What will be added here over time
Individual points of dispute and historical milestones will be examined on this page in separate contributions. These contributions are intended to examine the basic understanding on which each position rests, and to create a basis for an objective dialogue between research, practice and criticism.