We are all taking homeopathic "medicine"

Last week's 10:23 events got me looking at this again. People don't seem to understand the sheer craziness of a "20C" dilution used in preparing homeopathic "medicines"- here's a random example from helpful gambler Mason:

Gelsemium is the preferred craps anxiety remedy at 20C dilution. This dilution will see to it that you should receive a single molecule of Gelsemium for every 100 molecules of water since it is prepared by a 20C dilution of Gelsemium.

"Craps anxiety"? Yes, this preparation will calm your nerves specifically in the situation where you are gambling with dice. Because a placebo could never do that.

Anyhow, the writer is completely wrong about the "1 molecule in 100", not even anywhere close. it's really "incredibly, absurdly unlikely, that there is even one single molecule of 'Gelsemium' in the dose -- after 20 sequential dilutions of 100:1 each" (which is what 20C means). Here you will find a sales page describing 'Gelsemium', and towards the bottom, a recommendation for a 30C preparation.

Well, the oceans of the Earth contain about 1.4 billion cubic km of water. Which is about 10 to the power 20, times 4 gallons. What that means, you could chuck 4 gallons of water containing a bunch of Gelsemium into the ocean, and mix it all up, through all the oceans of the world, and that would be a 10C dilution of the original 4 gallons. For a 20C dilution, you would need to do it again: remove 4 gallons from the mixed-up ocean (from any part of it), put that aside, drain the oceans, fill them all up again with clean water (free of Gelsemium, anyhow), throw the 4 gallons back in, and then mix all of that up again. For 30C you'd need to do it all a third time. That's not the prescribed procedure, of course, but it's the same dilution ratio overall.

Homeopaths (except for Mason the crap-shooter, anyway) are aware that there can't be a single molecule left after such dilutions. (in fact, even after a 10C dilution you're down to a few molecules per gram at best);. To escape the obvious 'placebo effect' explanation, they've come up with a 'water memory effect': the substance imprints itself on the water molecules, and the imprint is passed amongst all the molecules to each other. So you don't need a molecule of Gelsemium in the result to have an effect (or tiger pee, or Berlin Wall, or whatever. See list here).

But, the water molecules on earth have almost all been around for a very, very long time, and have collectively been through the water cycle many times; many were ingested and excreted by Tyrannosaurus Rex, for instance, and we can only assume that the imprint of T Rex colon has been passed to all other water molecules by now. Likewise for Lourdes Water, Rabbit's blood, Sea Urchin, umbilical cord, T Rex fossil, and basically all the 2500 items on that list.

So, every time you take a drink of water (or anything) you are imbibing a rich, natural homeopathic cocktail of, well, everything! Including bonus items such as Australopithecus Armpit, Neanderthal Nose, and Archaeopteryx Eyeball.

I don't see what difference homeopaths expect to make by adding a bit of some specific thing to the vast collective memory of the Earth's water. Unless -- wait a minute -- unless we are supposed to believe that water molecules somehow know that a qualified homeopath is doing the stirring (and shaking; this is important, they say), so that they know to forget all the previous memories they have, of substances which were not prescribed (and in any case, the homeopath is not being paid for) and instead focus on passing around this memory of Gelsemium or Squid Ink or Tobacco Smoke so that the label on the front of the resulting package has some meaning.

Again -- and quite aside from the fact that we know of no way for water molecules to retain a memory of anything : the water molecules are supposed to know when you are mixing a homeopathic preparation, so that they can forget all previous memories and focus on the new one (and meanwhile, ignore any stray contaminant molecules, and the container material).

Far more plausible things are taught at Hogwart's.

You can even get Vacuum - a dilution to nothing, starting with absolutely nothing. So, come on, we know they're just secretly laughing at you for paying for this stuff. Why pay when you get it all for free, right from the tap?