Why are so many people against homeopathy?

Have these people that write it off tried it? Have they researched it's benefits, how it's done and the philosophy of it? Is it simply because they don't understand it that they think it doesn't work?

The really simple answer is because "if it does what it is purported to do, then it jeopardizes a multi billion dollar industry." (or more depending on how you analyze it). Every other reason for why people are so against it stems from that fact.
At the end of the day, most people care principally about money, and anything which comes along to challenge their wealth will get attacked relentlessly.

If you look at homeopathy historically, when it came about allopathy was doing a really bad job, and homeopathy was so much better that it just knocked the conventional doctors out of business. They didn't like that, and the AMA was taken over by the Rockefellers (and given new management), and started moving to protect their market.
This was done by creating quack smearing campaigns (claiming anyone who used a medicial treatment the AMA did not have a financial interest in was crazy and promoting dangerous fradulent medicine) and positioning themselves with the authority to give accredidation to medicial schools.

Once that happened, they rescinded all the homeopathic medical schools accredidation and punished conventional schools that taught homeopathy. Flash forward a bit and homeopathy is no longer a sanctioned practice, and most doctors have been driven out of the profession.

Finally, the cement their position, they created an institutional wide bias against homeopathy (ie. began teaching people in their schools reasons why it was crap), which over time magnified till most people sincerely believed it was worthless. There are lots of books explaining how engineering perceptions (the art of PR and propoganda) work, such as my favorite Trust Us We're Experts, and what happened to homeopathy was a textbook case. As it stands now, doctors who go through medical school are taught a world view which is completely incompatible with homeopathy, and hence when presented with anything proving it's efficacy they will simply ignore it.

The other main reason "people are opposed to homeopathy" is because it's incompatible with religous/belief based since (which I view modern medicine to ascribe to). Essentially that's because medicine holds the tenet that "if we cannot explain or understand why something works, then it does not work" (which is religious since it makes the assumption medicine is omnipotent). In the case of homeopathy, they cannot explain why it works, hence it challenges the religious mindset. As a result, it's considered to be worthless. I would argue this entire paragraph resulted from designing an insitutional wide bias to go against homeopathy (and hence doctors were conditioned to believe the premises in this paragraph, along with not being taught the science that explains homeopathy, to lead to the net result of the notion that homeopathy just cannot work; it's very subtle but also amazingly effective!)

Unfortunately, homeopathy works really well and is very easy to learn (and is also very cheap), while modern medicine is expensive, innaccesible, and often doesn't produce positive results, so despite numerous efforts to kill it off it's still alive and kicking.
Unfortunately it's nearly impossible to convince anyone who went through med school that it works unless they had a personal relative who used it to cure themselves when modern medicine failed.

Hope that helps!

*for reference, I think homeopathy works, but I've found its efficacy is extremely dependent on getting a good practicioner; bad ones effectively do nothing while good ones get amazing results.

I understand what you are saying. I personally prefer this type of treatment. In our modern day and age it seems homeopathy has been forgotten. Drug companies do not want people to know there are other-cheaper AND safer ways to cure illnesses, so they have bad mouthed it to the public and with many doctors. Many drug companies sponsor the medical books training doctors study from, and so they make sure their medicine is taught. Many other people are only being shallow-minded and simply grew up in an environment where people like you and I would be called charlatans (quacks). I could go into a much larger explanation about all this, but it gets complicated the deeper you go. Hope I helped.

While advocates point to positive results as evidence for its efficacy, the number of high-quality studies that support homeopathy is small, the conclusions are not definitive, and duplication of the results, a key test of scientific validity, has proven problematic at best.[14] The lack of convincing scientific evidence supporting its efficacy[15] and its use of remedies without active ingredients have caused homeopathy to be regarded as pseudoscience;[16] quackery;[17][18][19] or, in the words of a 1998 medical review, "placebo therapy at best and quackery at worst."[

Alex pretty much said it all. You can't possibly assume to know the efficacy of homeopathy unless you've studied it. Obviously, non-believers have not and as a result, let their arrogance show in their self-acclaimed logic and "critical thinking". turns out this "thinking" doesn't really help their understanding either.

I was a homeopathy user. I have ADHD and was looking for a good medicine because i was sick of the medication. Although I cannot say it worked precisely how i wanted it to I can defiantly say it did work. There were many positive effects and i actually would say it was a fun experience meeting with the homeopathist or whatever they call themselves (sorry if that sounded rude) and creating my homeopathic remedy. I said i was a user only because i haven't had an appointment to renew my..."stuff". i hope i answered your question correctly and if i didn't it was because i wasn't sure what the exact "question" was.

Thats pretty presumptuous. Have you considered that people who believe in it are perhaps the least informed? And people who think it doesn't work do so because of scientifically controlled evidence.

Anyway, you cont convince people with a strong opinion to change in an instant. Especially people with a strong scientific background and an understanding of chemistry and physiology. As the scientific evidence for homeopathy isn't strong. So the non-believers wont convert unless you produce some pretty good trials, and mechanisms for its efficacy.

The homeopaths and non-homeopaths should just leave each other alone. You will NOT be able to convince each other to change.

You just end up in the same argeument.

Homeopath: Government conspiracy.. homeopathy works for me..
Non-homeopath: No evidence .... placebo effect
Homeo: Works for me.... conspriacy... drug companies.....
Non-homeo: Science..... physiology.... impossible......

Round and round in circles. There is no point in pursuing this further.

Why did so many people believe, that our planet is flat. Why were so many astronomers burn alive for telling the true. Why did people believe that the neighbor is a witch or warlock? Why, why, why?? Because they are just herd of sheep to follow the ram. (our leaders, who dance to the music produced by pharmacy, oil and weapon oligarchy). All of those who doesn't believe should read the study done after the plague in London. The % of patients surviving the disease was three times higher in homoeopathic hospitals, compare to the normal allopathic ones. And how about that for an argument!!!!

Well maybe it is because the ones against it are actually critical thinkers and realize it is total garbage. The ones against it are the healthy thinkers who understand the whole idea is far from sound.