Ellie and Solidgoldbrass: as you seem to have descended beyond the point I would stop talking to people in real life, I'll have to leave it there with you and we can agree to disagree.
BOF:
"The placebo effect is indeed fascinating. We know that this explains why many people feel that homeopathy works for them."
Firstly, people don't feel it works - it does actually work. How? Is it the placebo effects alone? Is there an element of holistic attention? Is there something else?
"It doesn't mean that homeopathy has some actually-existing physical or chemical curative quality, or that there is some magic involved that science has not yet discovered."
That is not what I'm suggesting at all. Straw man. That's the easy part.
"A little knowledge may indeed, as the cliché goes, be a dangerous thing. But it's certainly less dangerous than eschewing all rationality and surrendering to ascientific nonsense"
That's moot: there's no question about the damage done by "all rationality" and scientific "tried and tested" treatments.
"and believing that this is actually characteristic of superior insight."
It might be nice to think that because you know there are no active chemicals inside a homeopathic pill you therefore know everything there is to know about homeopathy. With many people - including, for example, the researchers into placebo you mentioned, it doesn't stop there.
I think the NHS harnesses the power of homeopathy very well. It's carried out in a clinical environment, with approved people, access to medical records, and (I assume) training and guidelines (as it's under the NHS) to ensure that recommendations aren't given that interfere with vital conventional treatment.
Oh dear BOF, I've just seen that you agreed with Ellie's very rude comment. Well I've typed all this out now, so we'll just have to agree to disagree as well.