Essay:Double standards in CAM

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Essay.svg This essay is an original work by Krej.
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Irrational thinking is characteristic of cranks and pseudoscience supporters world. As they form their opinions, over time their views will become more and more entrenched, until there's no going back. Once at the point of no return, cranks will distort reality and do whatever mind-flips necessary to prove to themselves that their position is right.

In the world of CAM, this way of thinking of very prevalent. One example is the double standards held by CAM supporters.

Take this article by the [] center for Integrative Medicine.

It analyzes the mechanism of action of a herbal active ingredient. If that were all, it wouldn't be so bad.

But the author has to take a jab at modern medicine, so at the end he tacks this on:

""

On the face of it, it doesn't seem totally insanse: Thousands of people have died from Tylenol use, while only a few died from the herb, and then only from overdosing. Therefore, Tylenol is evil, and the natural herb is good. He may well be pro-CAM and anti-modern-medicine.

However, the author neglected to mention one thing: The deaths were actually from Tylenol overdosing. Besides which, the numerical comparions are completely useless, because there are many more Tylenol users than there users of that herb. If there were as many herb users as there are Tylenol users, then there would also be thousands of deaths from herb overdosing. The comparison is invalid. In fact, the herb may actually be worse, since it cannot contain precise amounts of active ingredient. Somebody taking it make overdose while taking the recommended amounts, simply because he happened to buy the wrong bottle. Tylenol, on the other hand, is very precisely measured. The comparison is not valid.

Of course, the author likely knows all this. If presented with these points, he'll just hand-wave them away and say CAM is better "just because". He could have presented these points, but he chose instead to disingenously omit important facts. A perfect example of illogical double standards.

Hyman's Homeopathic Teething Tablets were banned because there were reported cases of bellandonna poisoning from them. You can find altie sites talking about how unfair it was, and how it's a conspiracy to suppress gentle cures. They don't even consider the possibility that, well, you know... they might actually have killed babies.

The world is full of irrational thinking and absurd beliefs. These beliefs can have disastrous effects on public policy and the health of the general population, such as in the cases of creationism and vaccine hysteria. We rationalists try to combat the tide of superstition and reach out to the undecided or open-minded. Perhaps we'll succeed.

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