Mark Cohen: Most of the trials studied showed a positive effect, and none had a negative effect.

Mark, I followed your first link and found that a subgroup of studies showed no positive effects. As you surely know, 'no positive' includes both no effect and negative unless you have additional information. Do you have additional information from the original study or was the 'none had a negative effect' bit your creative interpretation?

I urge everyone to read what Mark has linked (it is short) in original and you'll also find sentences about the low quality of the studies involved and several more sentences that might make you less confident that we know already a lot.

For those who are interested in scientific research about homeopathy there are many more metaanalyses than the one Mark has linked to (I wonder by the way, what/who has forced them in that metaanalysis to write an erratum as you can see on the page linked to by Mark; can be anything from a minor error to a big blunder). Follow my link for a Review of 12 metaanalyses including the one Mark has mentioned. This way you get a broader database for a judgement. (no references there, deplorably).

Bat Goddess: One of the main things in homeopathy's favor, as far as I'm concerned, is at worst it does nothing.

For your own safety (and let's hope you'll never need this advice) you should know that you are wrong and in the worst case you could be dead wrong. There are documented cases in which patients have died or suffered harm unnecessarily when sole reliance upon alternative methods of treatment has prevented early detection or treatment of diseases which would have been easily treatable by evidence based medicine. Taking homeopathic medication does no harm (exception below) by itself, that's correct, the harm done can result from wrongly relying upon them too long.

More as a historical aside: In the times of Hahnemann, there were prescriptions with what we now consider very harmful doses of quicksilver in the undiluted parts of the homeopathic treatment. Of course, with a high dilution it doesn't matter. Today cases of treatments with medications that are undiluted are comparably rare but in this cases you should hope that your homeopathic doctor doesn't rely upon the original literature.

Wolfgang