futureboy
Well-known member
I think alternative medicine can work, depending on what you mean by "work".
Can it make patients feel better? Something like acupuncture certainly can. Can it solve the underlying problem? No. By the same token, elements of conventional medicine (e.g. analgesia) don't solve the underlying problem either; they just make the patient feel better.
I'm not going to argue with that - the placebo effect is perfectly valid and if someone feels better because they think something has worked, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Totally fair comment. But I also feel that this kind of stuff is too often given a place at the big boys' table instead of being more widely reocgnised as an "alternative".