XKCD on homeopathy

Randall Munroe: “I just noticed CVS has started stocking homeopathic pills on the same shelves with–and labeled similarly to–their actual medicine. Telling someone who trusts you that you’re giving them medicine, when you know you’re not, because you want their money, isn’t just lying–it’s like an example you’d make up if you had to illustrate for a child why lying is wrong.” (Hover over the comic to see the text.)

I’ve noticed several “mainstream” stores (not just CVS) mixing homeopathic junk in with their actual medicine. And some of the homeopathic stuff is labeled to look like the normal stuff. You need to look at the labeling carefully. Some of it is “medicine” for children, which makes one shudder at the vile evilness of it all.

I remember when, just a few years ago, the crazy homeopathic products, if they were on offer at all at the neighborhood drugstore, were clustered together in their own special section, and the bottles looked distinctively different from the containers of real medicine. Now, increasingly, the imaginary remedies are mixed in with the general population, and allowed to wear normal clothes.

I’m not sure, however, it’s a matter of simple mercenary lying. The failures of our (I’m talking about the U.S., here) educational system have left most people, from the CEOs to the stock clerks, unable to distinguish, in a very real sense, between what is real and what is fantasy. A bottle of aspirin and a bottle of superstition are both just products, and no doubt there are customers demanding to know why their favorite homeopathic pills are not in stock.