What If Woo Was True?

Aside from asking the nerdiest of questions here at Overthinking It, I'm also a ranger for good science. As such, I constantly have my eye out for the good, the bad, and the ugly. The ugliest--pseudoscience--is often the hardest to hunt down and remedy. Much ink has been spilled over countering crazy contraptions, alternative medicines, and conspiracy theories, but we hardly ever hear the other side of the story. By definition, pseudoscience lacks empirical support, but I'm feeling generous. What if "woo" were true? If magnetic people really existed, what would that mean for society? If homeopathy really worked, how would medicine change? Over at my new Reductio ad Absurdum column for Skeptical Inquirer Magazine, I am going through classic pseudosciences to explore the real-world implications of these ideas and theories. My latest, published today, takes a look at homeopathy: