I pity the people who worship at the religion of ‘Scientific Studies,’ but refuse to even seriously consider the very real charge that Western medical research suffers from a cousin of reporting bias, in that the vast majority of research funding goes to research within the confines of western medicine, usually with the aim to produce a highly profitable, patentable pharmaceutical product.
Many types of alternative treatments are criticized because there is an absence of rigorous, large sample, well designed, multi million dollar studies proving or debunking them.
But, if one looks, one simply finds no such studies at all.
So, someone who actually believes in Science will not say ‘X alternative treatment doesn’t work.’ They will say ‘The efficacy of X treatment is not well established at this time.’
Someone who believes in science will not say ‘The studies showing the efficacy of X are not well designed, so X is not effective.’ They will, again, say ‘the efficacy of X is not well established and needs further research.’
Some areas have received some research, such as homeopathy. But for the most part, most treatments that are dismissed as ‘quackery’ have simply never been well studied. researched. One can say that there are justified reasons for not studying them, that they have no interest in them, etc; but one cannot make the claim that they are not effective and still claim to be a supporter of Science or the Scientific Method.
