Cheers, I appreciate that. I was worried for a second that I really had come off like a crazy conspiracy theorist! I know what you mean though, I definitely have been guilty of putting an opinion out there pre-maturely.
Yes, absolutely. Everything I mentioned I gleaned from listening to “The Skeptics Guide to the Universe” podcast and “Skeptics with a K”– they have covered a few cases where people reverse the standard of evidence, but you’re right that in most cases it goes the other way and the control group is treated like it should be. That’s what I mean about it being a last bastion; they really have nothing else, so are clinging to supposed placebo magic.
That’s just a small sub-set of alt-med, mostly from earnest researchers who are searching the cracks of studies for a negligible effect that may just be an artifact of research. It’s too bad. The " ancient knowledge energy flows" people are doing just fine; they don’t need any standards of evidence.
