A paper we covered has been retracted, and we couldn?t be happier

Five years after Ars' Chris Lee pointed out that the authors of a homeopathy paper were doing little more than offering up "magic" as an explanation for their results, the editors of the journal it was published in have retracted it. But really, the back-and-forth between the editors and authors has gotten bogged down in details that miss the real problem with the original paper.The work described in the now-retracted paper involved a small clinical trial for depression treatment with three groups of participants. But as Chris noted in his original criticism, the authors leap to the conclusion that treating people with water must therefore be effective.The problem with this is that it ignores some equally viable explanations, such as a statistical fluke in a very small study (only about 45 people per group) or that it was the time spent with the homeopathic practitioner that made the difference, not the water. If you see a difference, you have to consider all scientifically plausible mechanisms to account for it.Based on what we know from other work, the PLOS ONE editors are right to consider "homeopathy generates a stronger placebo effect than a pill" a plausible mechanism.