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Thanks Dang. I generally agree with the guidelines, but in this particular case, I don't think joshuapants should be required to give a full refutation of Ayurveda in order to state his opposition to taking health advice from such a practitioner.

I'm not sure if this is common knowledge or not, but the term "woo" is a pretty widely used term in certain circles to describe fields and ideas that, shall we say, may not be self-critical and self-questioning enough in the ways you need to be in order to get to the truth. (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Woo)

Thus, I'm not sure if I would even classify it as "calling names". Ayurvedic practitioners might find it derogatory; I'm not sure. But it's a clear communication to a certain population of the what category joshuapants believes Ayurveda belongs to, and also a hint of what qualities of these peoples' thought processes might make joshuapants nervous when it's applied to other areas.

[dang]

It's always possible to make one's point without using an intellectual slur like "woo-peddlers", which of course is calling names. None of us is immune to this bad habit, but we should all try to be. It doesn't matter how right one is; the mentality that thinks 'I'm right, therefore it's ok if I call names' is the problem in the first place.