Yes, but a lot of people forget the other side of that.
You know what they call it when a doctor gives a treatment based on an unjustifiable hunch (or prodding from a pharma rep) that never gets reviewed because of privacy and unwillingness to criticize other doctors? Medicine.
Just because typical altmed lacks a sound epistemology, doesn't mean the typical doctor has it.
All anyone should care about is results. If a ritual somehow reduces pain then it can hardly be called "pointless."
The problem is when there are no results. From homeopathic "medicine" that's nothing but water to chiropractors claiming that they can treat allergies, there's a ton of alternative medicine that's just completely baseless.
Pain is an area where weird things can help, because it's ultimately a matter of perception. But that doesn't in any way legitimize the sorts of folks who say they can treat cancer by manipulating your spine.
Exactly. You should really stop and do a re-think if you ever find yourself saying, "no, that didn't relieve your pain, it just produced a state observationally indistinguishable from lacking pain!"
Kinda like the people who say "shaving hair doesn't make it come back darker. That's a misconception. It just looks like it does ... when what you care about is looks."
That assumes there is some systematic process in which established medicine adopts alternative methods once they have been validated.
However, this is a simplistic view that is quite far from reality. First, the practices are totally different in principled approaches. Medicine generally is focused on treatment and management of illness and conditions. Alternative medicine is generally focused on prevention or reversal of conditions.
Medicine doesn't have much incentive to adopt alternative practices even when they do work. You can't patent them. Lot's of research often goes into taking a natural substance and turning it into a drug just so it can be patented to make it profitable. However, often in the effort to create a drug version, the drug version must be a modified structure which doesn't exist in nature in order for it to be patentable, but this is what leads to the problem of side effects or complete failures of medications.
Just look at recent revelations of medicine such as anti-depressants which perform no better than placebo. Effectiveness of statins are being called into question and then there is monumental disaster Vioxx that killed something like 55k after successfully completing the FDA approval process.
Simply saying medicine works and alternative doesn't is quite an unfair view. Reality is there is both good and bad on both sides.
IIRC, it works better than a sugar-pill placebo, but not better than injection-based placebo. Magnitude of the placebo effect is different by delivery mechanism.
SilasX|10 years ago
You know what they call it when a doctor gives a treatment based on an unjustifiable hunch (or prodding from a pharma rep) that never gets reviewed because of privacy and unwillingness to criticize other doctors? Medicine.
Just because typical altmed lacks a sound epistemology, doesn't mean the typical doctor has it.
perseuswiki|10 years ago
and evidence based medicine = less care
"Researchers find placebo combined with more care is better than a drug alone." http://arstechnica.com/science/2015/04/a-tale-of-two-placebo...
Retric|10 years ago
IMO, if doing a 'pointless' ritual reduces someones dependance on pain medication then it's useful.
mikeash|10 years ago
The problem is when there are no results. From homeopathic "medicine" that's nothing but water to chiropractors claiming that they can treat allergies, there's a ton of alternative medicine that's just completely baseless.
Pain is an area where weird things can help, because it's ultimately a matter of perception. But that doesn't in any way legitimize the sorts of folks who say they can treat cancer by manipulating your spine.
SilasX|10 years ago
Kinda like the people who say "shaving hair doesn't make it come back darker. That's a misconception. It just looks like it does ... when what you care about is looks."
13years|10 years ago
However, this is a simplistic view that is quite far from reality. First, the practices are totally different in principled approaches. Medicine generally is focused on treatment and management of illness and conditions. Alternative medicine is generally focused on prevention or reversal of conditions.
Medicine doesn't have much incentive to adopt alternative practices even when they do work. You can't patent them. Lot's of research often goes into taking a natural substance and turning it into a drug just so it can be patented to make it profitable. However, often in the effort to create a drug version, the drug version must be a modified structure which doesn't exist in nature in order for it to be patentable, but this is what leads to the problem of side effects or complete failures of medications.
Just look at recent revelations of medicine such as anti-depressants which perform no better than placebo. Effectiveness of statins are being called into question and then there is monumental disaster Vioxx that killed something like 55k after successfully completing the FDA approval process.
Simply saying medicine works and alternative doesn't is quite an unfair view. Reality is there is both good and bad on both sides.
greglindahl|10 years ago
Acupuncture isn't medicine. It's a super-placebo.
dragonwriter|10 years ago
IIRC, it works better than a sugar-pill placebo, but not better than injection-based placebo. Magnitude of the placebo effect is different by delivery mechanism.
unknown|10 years ago
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