Essay talk:The Problem with Alternative Medicine

Fallacious article

The concept "alternative medicine" is a negative definition (any non-conventional treatment), therefore it encompasses wildly varying approaches and there can't be a problem common to them all. 84.241.208.12 (talk) 01:36, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Actually, there is. "Alternative medicine" is "medicine" that hasn't been proven to work; if alternative medicine is proven to work, it loses the "alternative" adjective and becomes "medicine".

This is the common to all alternative therapies that I've seen. Carpetsmoker (talk) 01:54, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Lots of conventional treatments have not been proven to work either, yet they're not classified as Alternative medicine, therefore your definition is bogus. Wikipedia has adopted the "non-conventional treatment" definition instead.

Plus, in this study by Mayo Clinic, more than 40 percent of established medical practices studied were found to be ineffective or harmful: A Decade of Reversal: An Analysis of 146 Contradicted Medical Practices. Examples: hormone therapy in postmenopausal women, high-dose chemotherapy and stem cell transplant. 145.64.134.241 (talk) 16:00, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

It's true that the title of the essay doesn't really fit its contents (appeal to nature + anecdotal evidence). I'm open to suggestions.--Кřěĵ (ṫåɬк)