Richard Dawkins debates homeopathy with Dr. Peter Fisher (2007)

Richard Dawkins made a television documentary called "The enemies of reason" in 2007. A large portion of the first part of the documentary is on homeopathy. You can watch it here. While I think it was a pretty good documentary that consisted of legitimate criticism, it was edited for television and was focused on "gotcha" moments. I think it also missed out on an educational opportunity to explain the rigorous methods of a well conducted randomized controlled trial. I recently ran across Dr. Peter Fisher's defence of NHS funding for homeopathy in the 'uncut' interview with Dawkins from the documentary.

This was probably the best defence of homeopathy I have ever seen. Despite this, with his usual style, Dawkins had Dr. Fisher on the ropes the entire time without even citing the evidence for a lack of homeopathic efficacy. Admittedly Dr. Fisher is an easy target, however I would hate to have to debate Dawkins on any subject. He finds common ground, concedes valid points, asks great questions, and lets his opponent talk him/herself into tight corners. From my biased perspective, in this interview Dawkins essentially had Dr. Fisher admit that homeopathy is a form of placebo. However, is there any context in which homeopathy could provide a safe, cost-effective treatment that is completely placebo? Probably not, however water is pretty cheap and safe.

Nature enables sharing of articles

The journal Nature now enables subscribers to share articles for free though hyperlinks to a proprietary document format. The hyperlink to the article can then be subsequently shared by anyone. A year subscription to Nature costs $200 and an article costs around $30. While this is a somewhat awkward model in my opinion, I appreciate that such a prestigious journal can demonstrate some flexibility and adapt to the changing publishing business.
Here is a link to a paper on the identification of the remains of Richard III in the proprietary ReadCube format.