[jfengel]

Indeed. We value evidence-based medicine, especially when it comes to rejecting interventions that have been demonstrated not to work. As has been said, the name for "alternative medicine that actually works" is "medicine".

But a surprising amount of "medicine" is less well evidenced than we'd like it to be. That's not the same as demonstrably-false, but nowhere near the rock-solid gold-standard of testing. But we don't stop using it, because suffering patients can't wait while we straighten out the epistemological mess.

The best one to make a decision is a doctor, who has both the education required to understand the state of the art, and the details of the patient in front of them. They can combine that with their experience to make the best decision possible. It won't always be perfect, but it's got more likelihood than people guessing about what they think medicine is about.