Not buying into pseudosciences
By Konstantine Palanski
4th year Biotechnology student
January 28, 2009
I’m certain you’ve seen the advertisements, the ones that peddle Complementary and Alternative Medicines (CAM) such as acupuncture, homeopathy, chiropractic and naturopathy, just to mention a few.
Some of these practices have become so ingrained within our minds that most people do not go so far as to question their techniques or promises, accepting them at face value. That’s the beauty of it for the CAM proponents, that is where the money lies.
I hate to be the one to break the bad news, but you’ve been duped. All of the above mentioned practices, as well as others that are labelled as being part of the CAM movement, are based on expired ideas that have been disproven by science long ago, but still attract the general naive public due to the cure-all promises and quick fixes.
Acupuncture has been shown to be just as effective when the needles don’t puncture the skin; homeopathy works against all the tenets of chemistry to claim that the more diluted a substance is within water, the greater its medicinal effect will be; chiropractic medicine is based entirely on 19th century thought that misalignments (subluxations) in the spine are the cause for all your maladies and that adjustments of the spine can be used to treat you.
Finally, naturopathy is based on whatever is currently being peddled to the public, from actual sound advice about commonsense lifestyle choices, to the use of dubious and scientifically implausible modes of treatment based on mysticism, such as acupuncture.
Most of the institutions that subscribe to the CAM label will be quick to express their dislike of scientific biomedicine (labelled as allopathy by CAM proponents) and insist that their methods of healing have not been accepted by mainstream biomedicine for a plethora of fantasised reasons.
They will never mention the fact that an astounding amount of research has been done to try to lend credence to their claims and the astonishing majority of well formed double-blinded tests have shown nothing in the way of evidence suggesting that CAM treatments have an effect larger than that of a placebo.
This is precisely why this antiscientific movement relies heavily on anecdotal evidence, rather than scientific, to sell what they are peddling.
Science is a beautiful thing. It is the collective knowledge of all the things that surround us in the universe, but it is also an incredibly reliable process which, when used correctly, can uncover the hidden beauty of the natural world around us.
It is falsifiable, testable and willing to accept change in light of new evidence. All of these things are the complete opposite of CAM and other pseudoscience, which stand to profit by rejecting the evidence presented to them.
Use critical thinking when making decisions, research your topics and inform yourself. Google is a powerful thing.
I can support each and every one of the claims I have made above, I have the research to back it up and I am more than willing to share it.
If you would like to ask more questions, be directed to places that may inform you better than I can, or join up with like minded people in a monthly sceptical meeting here in Windsor, please visit my website at www.palanski.com.
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