There are several scientists acting like the proverbial sharp stick, constantly poking the balloons of alternative remedy quacks until they burst. They assess the latest nonsensical claims of so-called complementary medicine and then give it a good poke with the sharp end. I do wonder if they ever manage to guilt-trip their targets into giving up their often ludicrous claims of panaceas based on infinitely dilute solutions, candles, stones, touchless massage etc. Of course, if one patient avoids being conned and seeks professional medical help in their time of need rather than turning to quackery and deferring treatments that might save their lives, then they have succeeded.
I’m not against CAM per se, I just want to see the evidence. If it’s science-based, then it’s not alternative, it’s just medicine! Evidence is blinded trials though, not anecdote. Just because you think a particular alt treatment worked is not proof, you may well have got better without it. You can never know for sure, regardless of how convincing the practitioner is nor how convinced you are that conventional medicine is some evil conspiracy in the pocket of big pharma. And, remember you don’t tend to hear the stories from all those people with fatal diseases who turned to alt med and it failed them…often because they’re dead.
But, maybe there is something to be said for the latest alternative practice I heard about just made up, it sounds very sciencey – Remote quantally channelled kinetic agitation.
First, it’s quantized, derived from quantum, which hooks into a whole lot of New Age stuff about consciousness and borrows heavily from the world of modern physics. Everything is channelled these days too, energy, chi, qi, you name it, it’s channelled, bringing harmony and balance to the mind-body-spirit triumvirate. Best of all, it’s “remote” so treatments can be carried out without the practitioner having to leave the comfort of their luxury yacht and more to the point could even be done over the internet so patient and practitioner needn’t meet and no diseased patient’s grime or sweat need taint the practitioner’s delicate hands.
It’s also kinetic that’s movement and energy and ties in with kinesiology. Agitation – the actual treatment agitating your kinetics quantally, one at a time via the internet.
$120 per hour + taxes. Sounds like a bargain to me, where do you sign up? It’s even got a nice pronounceable name: “Remote QUACKA”.
Asthma, headaches, migraine, ADHD, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, cancer, allergies, hives, acne, back ache, tennis elbow, cruciate ligament problems, mumps, measles, rubella, chicken pox AND shingles, earache, blindness, doublechin, missing limbs, missing brain. A short list of some of the things this and other sCAM practices really, really, really cannot do anything about.