ponzoillusion.blogspot.com
Another good, detailed piece, taking down some of the boosters of unproven alternative approaches medical approaches, and how they misunderstand (to be polite) or misuse some of the limitations of current scientific and research methods, including evidence-based medicine. A bit of a rant, but well ranted (and argued). Quote:
One characteristic of cranks, quacks, and pseudoscience boosters is a love-hate relationship with science. They desperately crave the respectability and validation that science confers. In the case of medicine, they want to be seen as evidence- and science-based. On the other hand, they hate science because it just won’t given them what they want: Confirmation and validation. The reasons, of course, are obvious; their preferred ideas about disease and modalities to treat it are not rooted in science. Rather, they’re usually based in either prescientific concepts of how the human body works and how disease attacks it (i.e., vitalism or miasmas), or they are based in completely unscientific belief systems, or both. It’s not surprising, then, that science either tells them that their ideas are nonsense right from the start (i.e., for homeopathy or distance healing) or finds when it tests treatments based on those ideas that they do not perform better than placebo.
Evidence-based medicine: More than a “coin flip” – Respectful Insolence.
