This campaign makes me happy.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/a4e.html

Ask for evidence

Evidence matters in many of the decisions we make - as patients, consumers, voters and citizens. If you want to know whether a claim made in a policy, newspaper article, advert or product is backed by scientific evidence, ask the people making the claim to provide it.
- See more at: http://www.senseaboutscience.org/pages/a4e.html#sthash.KyveImr5.dpuf

[McGrupp]

I like the ones where they go after politicians.

Gary Frewin asked for evidence when his local MP, David Tredinnick, claimed in parliament that Traditional Chinese Medicine was effective against prostate cancer.
12/07/2013

"He returned a picture of an abstract of a Chinese research review. I tracked down the full review online but as a non-expert I found it extremely technical, so I got in touch with Sense About Science. They forwarded it to a specialist on their database who was able to help decipher it for me."

Professor of Complementary Medicine at the University of Exeter Edzard Ernst said:

"The Chinese studies supplied in support of this claim are next to meaningless: several investigators have shown that virtually 100% of these trials report positive results which casts serious doubt on their validity. To the best of my knowledge, there is no convincing evidence that TCM treatments are effective for prostate cancer."

"Given that Tredinnick has just tabled an early day motion in the House of Commons (a way to draw attention to an event or cause) to congratulate a farmer for successfully using homeopathic remedies on sheep, I think it is time for another Ask For Evidence

This is going to be fun to watch.

Another funny one:

Duncan Casey found that the study cited by a Minister to prove the effectiveness of a new phonics reading test was about how to successfully carry out the test, rather than results.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

My favorite thing that I've been hearing about traditional Chinese medicine is that "they've used it for six thousand years, ergo it works" combined with "it's a different paradigm from Western medicine, so it can't be evaluated using the Western paradigm"

Which is essentially the same as saying it uses different physics. If the question is "does it work", it seems like it would work or not work independently of what paradigm is used to evaluate it.

The "people have done it for a long time, therefore it works" is also one of the stupidest arguments for anything ever. People have practiced human sacrifice all over the globe for millennia. EFFECTIVE? Maybe we should bring it back!

[Cain]

David Tredinnick is widely recognised as one of our loonier politicians.  He thinks homeopathic rememdies for AIDS and Malaria exist, and is known to be deeply into astrology. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

David Tredinnick is widely recognised as one of our loonier politicians.  He thinks homeopathic rememdies for AIDS and Malaria exist, and is known to be deeply into astrology.

Oh FFS.

[Doktor Howl]

My favorite thing that I've been hearing about traditional Chinese medicine is that "they've used it for six thousand years, ergo it works" combined with "it's a different paradigm from Western medicine, so it can't be evaluated using the Western paradigm"

Which is essentially the same as saying it uses different physics. If the question is "does it work", it seems like it would work or not work independently of what paradigm is used to evaluate it.

The "people have done it for a long time, therefore it works" is also one of the stupidest arguments for anything ever. People have practiced human sacrifice all over the globe for millennia. EFFECTIVE? Maybe we should bring it back!

Three words:  Powdered Rhino Horn.

[PopeTom]

By definition” alternative medicine” has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work.
You know what they call “alternative medicine” that's been proved to work?
Medicine.”

[Bruno]

I have friends who are into wacky alternative medicine. I am all out of palms for face.

One guy told me about a story he heard, and believed, about a guy who was having a heart attack, so he chugged a glass of water and cayenne pepper. When he got to the hospital THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH HIM, NOT EVEN ANY SIGN THAT HE HAD EVEN HAD A HEART ATTACK!!!!

Miracle of miracles. This guy puts cayenne on everything now.

A girl at work is doing a purge, or cleansing, or whatever where she eats nothing but fruits and vegetables for a week to remove "toxins".

Punchline: she's Pre-Med.

Last but not least is my friend who has had diabetes for the last 25 or so years. His kidneys are failing now, and he was begging people on facebook for alternative medicine tricks to avoid having to go through dialysis. Granted, he gets most of his medicine from V.A. doctors who are probably not much better than Facebook doctors.

A mutual friend and I were visiting him in the V.A. a while back where he was waiting to have a foot amputated. A ulcer in the bottom of his foot had eaten its way all the way to the top of his foot. At the hospital, my friend shared a story about when his (recently deceased) mom was bedridden from Parkinsons, she had a similar ulcer on her foot. The doctors weren't having any luck healing it, so his dad put honey on it.

It got better.

I just don't even know how, much less what to think about this shit anymore. Hopefully, this project will help with that.

[McGrupp]

I actually place some of the blame on medicine itself. Having spent quite a few centuries pretending to know more than they do and also hiding much knowledge with fancy sounding words. Combine that and malpractice of some and I sorta get why folks search for another way. However, despite that modern medicine is pretty darn good compared to crazy stuff (depending on your doctor).

Although doing both is often beneficial as the placebo effect has been shown to help a tiny bit in addition to regular medicine.

I want to see holistic auto mechanics.

"We're not going to replace that muffler. Here's a secret mechanics don't want you to know about. We're just going to rub some cayenne pepper on the exhaust and place a magnet on the steering wheel. There. Good as new."

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I will say that there is a lot of unproven medicine out there that DOES work. The fact that something hasn't been proven to be effective doesn't automatically mean it has been proven NOT to be effective. I think that's an important distinction to make. However, I have to scoff loudly at the assertion that it isn't possible to examine the efficacy of Eastern medicine using Western scientific methods because it's "a different paradigm".

[Ben Shapiro]

I hate those fucking Eastern vs Western medicine fucktards.  Medicine that works is still medicine. That kind of thinking turns you into a Houston Free Thinker who thinks garlic can prevent me from dying via a gunshot wound to the head.

[Ben Shapiro]

My favorite thing that I've been hearing about traditional Chinese medicine is that "they've used it for six thousand years, ergo it works" combined with "it's a different paradigm from Western medicine, so it can't be evaluated using the Western paradigm"

Which is essentially the same as saying it uses different physics. If the question is "does it work", it seems like it would work or not work independently of what paradigm is used to evaluate it.

The "people have done it for a long time, therefore it works" is also one of the stupidest arguments for anything ever. People have practiced human sacrifice all over the globe for millennia. EFFECTIVE? Maybe we should bring it back!

Three words:  Powdered Rhino Horn.

Eye of Newt.

[Pæs]

Even if alternative medicine is just an effective way to induce the placebo effect, isn't that itself enough of a reason to practice these disciplines?

</holist>

[P3nT4gR4m]

My favorite thing that I've been hearing about traditional Chinese medicine is that "they've used it for six thousand years, ergo it works" combined with "it's a different paradigm from Western medicine, so it can't be evaluated using the Western paradigm"

Which is essentially the same as saying it uses different physics. If the question is "does it work", it seems like it would work or not work independently of what paradigm is used to evaluate it.

The "people have done it for a long time, therefore it works" is also one of the stupidest arguments for anything ever. People have practiced human sacrifice all over the globe for millennia. EFFECTIVE? Maybe we should bring it back!

I'm strangely comfortable with that 

[Reginald Ret]

My favorite thing that I've been hearing about traditional Chinese medicine is that "they've used it for six thousand years, ergo it works" combined with "it's a different paradigm from Western medicine, so it can't be evaluated using the Western paradigm"

Which is essentially the same as saying it uses different physics. If the question is "does it work", it seems like it would work or not work independently of what paradigm is used to evaluate it.

The "people have done it for a long time, therefore it works" is also one of the stupidest arguments for anything ever. People have practiced human sacrifice all over the globe for millennia. EFFECTIVE? Maybe we should bring it back!

Three words:  Powdered Rhino Horn.

Eye of Newt.

AFAIK Newts aren't going extinct.
I could kill people who use powdered Rhino Horn. Eye of Newt? Doesn't bother me as much.