[cainxinth]

> Homeopathy, chiropractic, osteopathy, “holistic medicine,” etc. are better when they achieve the same results, for less cost (monetary, physical, what have you), when they work, and do not do further harm to the patient.

That’s a tautology. “X is better than Y when it’s better than Y.” Show us evidence that they are better. But you won’t be able to. Alternative medicines do not generally outperform conventional medicine because they “…do not originate from using the scientific method, but instead rely on testimonials, anecdotes, religion, tradition, superstition, belief in supernatural ‘energies,’ pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, fraud, or other unscientific sources.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine

[financltravsty]

Who the hell is going to get a grant for studying the effectiveness of any of these things? Much less, who the hell is going to publish this in any reputable journal?

The evidence will be anecdotal at best.

[fnordpiglet]

Oh actually proving something as not true you know is likely not true is one of the easiest ways to get a well referenced paper published, and it doesn’t require expensive phased trials because it’s not true and is easily proven. There’s no need to do elaborate safety studies since it’s ineffective, you just need a fairly simply study that most medical professors can fund out of their discretionary research time and pads their paper counts. Journals are replete with “alternative medicine X does nothing” proof studies as a result.

The real challenge is taking something that does work, but isn’t economically worth while, through the phased trial process. However even those studies regularly get published - “X appears to be effective deserves further research,” which is probably the sadder side of medical research as that’s code for “never going to be researched.”

[cainxinth]

To the contrary, they've all been studied, which is how we know they aren't as effective as traditional medicine. Take acupuncture:

"As of 2021 many thousands of papers had been published on the efficacy of acupuncture for the treatment of various adult health conditions, but there was no robust evidence it was beneficial for anything, except shoulder pain and fibromyalgia.[17] For Science-Based Medicine, Steven Novella wrote that the overall pattern of evidence was reminiscent of that for homeopathy, compatible with the hypothesis that most, if not all, benefits were due to the placebo effect, and strongly suggestive that acupuncture had no beneficial therapeutic effects at all.[18]"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupuncture#Efficacy

[financltravsty]

Wikipedia is not a source. It is an opinion blog (just like ref 18), not peer-reviewed. Ref 17 is a systematic review, which is better, but this is still a lazy reply and it frustrates me to no end.

I'm not arguing for equal efficacy. I'm arguing that the complete disregard of sham practices, mediated by placebo, is not rational; and that not taking placebo into account as a possible treatment for certain conditions is short-sighted (if not harmful).