Most people in India think homeopathy is accepted as science because Government is strongly promoting it.
Students in India who want to become a doctor write a tough entrance exam. Those who get top ranks usually choose Scientific medicine while those who miss out by a mark or two choose to become a doctor in Ayurveda or Homeopathy. The students and their parents are made to believe that all are valid scientific ways of treatment. Once they become homeopathy doctors they will have to practice and defend homeopathy.
A group of science enthusiasts in Kerala has decided to warn students about the pitfalls in choosing homeopathy as a profession without knowing the real facts. They have started a social media campaign to warn students that by choosing homeopathy you are choosing a life of quackery. They are pointing out the fact that homeopathy is pseudo science and its therapeutic effects are equivalent to placebo. They do not want bright students who want to pursue a career in science end up in pseudoscience.
They have also started an online petition asking the government to stop admiring students in homeopathic colleges.
In my view anyone who wants to study homeopathy should be free to do it. But as there is no evidence for it being a scientific method of treatment, governments should not spend their scarce public resources in promoting it. Will we allow our governments to teach sorcery or astrology to our students ?
It’s a real shame that homeopathy is still considered as a viable method of treatment by a large number of educated people in the most “literate” state of this country. I’m all for the rights of people to believe in whatever flat-earth theory they want, but institutions giving quack degrees in pseudo-scientific fields should not be allowed to function in any country.
Sadly most people in the most “literate” state in India sadly lack scientific temper and logic.