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<blockquote data-quote="Murugane" data-source="post: 3056348" data-attributes="member: 149534">Well these are certainly valid questions which must be ruled out before we can conclude what did happen. The purpose of sceptical analysis is not to avoid “giving credence to alternative medicine,” rather; it is to rule out all other possibilities. Only then can we say it was effective. We don’t just go, “well, it looks like it is effective, so it is” or “she said it works, so it does.” We instead put the treatment through rigorous double and triple blinded tests. While many people claim to have received effect treatment, being sceptical of it does not equate to “not wanting to give credence to alternative medicine.” It is only to seek the effectiveness of it.Let’s look at homeopathy for example. Homeopathic substances cannot do anything, since they are just water, there is nothing in them, but people do still provide positive feedback, so clearly something is happening. Well it could just be a correlation fallacy (i.e. that the problem just disappeared on it own or by something else and the prior Homeopathic substance taken by the person is credited). It could also be the placebo effect. I recall one quote with regards to acupuncture along the line of “half the treatment is done before the needless are even applied to the patient” which is true for a lot of alternative medicine. People often have the expectation that something will happen, the procedure is often carried out in a relaxing environment, maybe with soft music, soothing voice, a massage, etc. All this may be part of the ‘healing’ effect. Perhaps the actual procedure or substance is even incidental to the healing in some of the cases (or, as with homeopathy, all of the cases).Perhaps some people will just do anything than credit an alternative medicine (do you have any examples of professions doing this), but I don’t, I would happily endorse an alternative medicine once it has been proven effective by scientific research (at which point, incidentally, it would cease to be alternative).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Murugane, post: 3056348, member: 149534"] Well these are certainly valid questions which must be ruled out before we can conclude what did happen. The purpose of sceptical analysis is not to avoid “giving credence to alternative medicine,” rather; it is to rule out all other possibilities. Only then can we say it was effective. We don’t just go, “well, it looks like it is effective, so it is” or “she said it works, so it does.” We instead put the treatment through rigorous double and triple blinded tests. While many people claim to have received effect treatment, being sceptical of it does not equate to “not wanting to give credence to alternative medicine.” It is only to seek the effectiveness of it. Let’s look at homeopathy for example. Homeopathic substances cannot do anything, since they are just water, there is nothing in them, but people do still provide positive feedback, so clearly something is happening. Well it could just be a correlation fallacy (i.e. that the problem just disappeared on it own or by something else and the prior Homeopathic substance taken by the person is credited). It could also be the placebo effect. I recall one quote with regards to acupuncture along the line of “half the treatment is done before the needless are even applied to the patient” which is true for a lot of alternative medicine. People often have the expectation that something will happen, the procedure is often carried out in a relaxing environment, maybe with soft music, soothing voice, a massage, etc. All this may be part of the ‘healing’ effect. Perhaps the actual procedure or substance is even incidental to the healing in some of the cases (or, as with homeopathy, all of the cases). Perhaps some people will just do anything than credit an alternative medicine (do you have any examples of professions doing this), but I don’t, I would happily endorse an alternative medicine once it has been proven effective by scientific research (at which point, incidentally, it would cease to be alternative). [/QUOTE]

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