Where to start…

“This is what Meta Analysis does, it picks the strongest trials etc, it cherry picks”

Yes, but they select on quality and then look at the results.
Homeopaths cherry pick by selecting on results regardless of quality.

“Placebo is evidence of effect, not of the tested substance but of the body’s conscious response.”

Not true. A placebo may not induce a placebo effect. The natural course of an illness may mean people get better without any ‘bind-body’ effects.

“How is it possible to know if it is a placebo effect or the actual Homeopathic remedy?”

You do trials. If homeopaths comes out the same as a placebo then it looks like the homeopathy voodoo has no specific effects.

“Some remedies my simply have a subtle effect, however positive.”
Ask your patients if they are happy with an undetectable subtle effect from your work.

“Science is about healthy skepticism, not some hysterical throwback witch trial.”

Witch trials are appropriate when you deal with witches.

To say that Homeopathy is only as good as Placebo is different than saying not as good as placebo.

Placebo is evidence of effect, not of the tested substance but of the body’s conscious response.

How is it possible to know if it is a placebo effect or the actual Homeopathic remedy? You cant… only if there is less of an effect than placebo. So you cannot say the Homeopathic remedy is not potentially doing an equal job to placebo.
Some remedies my simply have a subtle effect, however positive.
To deny this is as ignorant as you claim Homeopathy to be.

Science is about healthy skepticism, not some hysterical throwback witch trial.

Use science….

don’t abuse it.

In the past they did prove undiluted remedies. My favourite is the account of proving carb vedg (charcoal). They got the symptoms of scurvy, presumably because all that charcoal was sequestering vit C in their gut.

Now do they not have panels of provers, with a senior prover taking in lists of symptoms experienced by the others and synthesising them together. Thus they suppose that an individual may not experience all the symptoms but together they can build a remedy picture.

I think that having long been aware that they can do nothing like Andy's challenge they have instituted a sort of "cold reading" technique to practice on themselves and maintain their delusions.

The great thing about Andy's challenge is that it is something that homoeopaths actually claim to do, and that is in fact absolutely fundamental to the practise of homoepathy. In order to determine what symptoms a remedy is to be used to treat, the diluted remedy (not the crude substance) is given to volunteers, and the homoeopath in charge will then identify the characteristic symptoms caused. It therefore follows that they should be able to identify remedies from the symptoms they cause. Giving the homoeopath the opportunity to choose the remedies themselves will enable them to choose remedies that are supposed to produce dissimilar symptoms.

It also has the advantage that it doesn't involve treating patients.

The only amendment I'd make would be to insist on 30C remedies being used. They should have no trouble with this because this is the potency Hahnemann recommended for "provings" in the later editions of the Organon (see aphorism 128). Allowing any potency to be used would allow 1X, which is potentially a 10% solution; there are plenty of substances that would be easily identifiable at such a concentration (I'v recently spotted a homoeopath claiming to be able to identify a homoeopathioc preparation because it would stain blotting paper yellow – it turned out that what they were proposing to use may have been a mother tincture).

You point to a bigger logistical problem in carrying out this experiment for real, which is really one of trust. The only homeopaths who would be interested in taking part are either knowing fraudsters who thought they could spoof the experiment or true believers who would suspect any sceptics as being involved in some great conspiracy to discredit them. For the first, scientists aren’t very good at spotting fraud. For the second, I think they are to far gone to engage with, the lunacy is exhausting.

My scientific point remains. If you want to investigate a supposed biological phenomena in ill humans; study ill humans! Arrange your experiment so that it will give clear concrete numbers rather than ambiguous “squint or you’ll miss it” signals.

Andy’s challenge is so simple you would expect it to be a routine part of homeopaths practical exams. It is an analogous task to one given to me in second year chemistry, of identifying an unknown powder by chemical means. It’s also very similar to the kind of practical examinations taken by medical students. There is however an obvious reason why they don’t do it; it is impossible.

1. Homoeopath receives patients arriving at surgery as normal.
2. Homoeopath decides if patient is eligible for study.
3. Patient gives informed consent.
4. Homoeopath proscribes remedy.
5. Patient randomly, and double blindly, assigned to placebo or control.
6. Homeopath has as long as they want to call the assignment of the patient.

A simple little study involving just the patient, the remedy and the homeopaths judgment. The results would be simple, concrete count data; the number the homeopath got correct, the number they got wrong. The appropriate null distribution for the statistical test would be binomial, like tossing a coin, very easy to interpret."

I can just see a series of very low potency remedies (1X, perhaps, or possibly ones like the one used in this study) being prescribed.