This used to be a country that believed in science. The Apollo mission, nuclear bomb design, solid-fuel rocket boosters. Did the Vietnam War discredit the eggheads?

People want their iPod and their Acai Juice. Can you have it both ways?

Say what you like, at least the NCCAM is systematically debunking farfetched memes. These things have a lifecycle of their own, and I’m not sure NCCAM’s yearly $100 million makes a big difference in the long run.

By the way, this is a marvelous site, keep up the good work.

This is a polite way of saying that, as Ambrose Bierce puts it, “the world of being has scope enough for one of them, but not enough for both”

SCAM modalities are not only incompossible with the known laws of the universe, they are incompossible with each other. When will NCCAM ever get around to doing comparative studies of SCAM modalities head-to-head to determine whether either, both or neither can co-exist in the one person. Is it their subtle energy, innate intelligence or qi which is the problem? If they have problems with their gallbladder meridien how does this relate to their orgone level or could it possibly be able to predict response to therapeutic touch instead of reiki ?

These are not trivial questions. Within medicine, there are different approaches to health and disease, such as medical vs surgical, interventional vs conservative etc, but they are not incompossible, they truly are complementary of each other. They show different sides of the same elephant. Without even venturing onto the wilder shores of SCAM modalities, we can find evidence of incompossibility between (say) chiropractic and TCM. Innate intelligence or qi..which is the vital force ? Does treating subluxations alter the flow of qi? Is it even an elephant they are looking at ?

1 No amount of scientific proof seems sufficient to enlighten woo believers. Plenty of well designed studies have already been done showing numerous CAM treatments are no better than sham treatment, and CAM hasn’t gone away yet.

Science has already steamrollered over the whole issue, but the CAMers are not listening.

2 I don’t care for my tax dollars being spent on (more) studies of highly implausible treatments . Should we spend tax dollars researching whether praying to space aliens and using astrology can prevent prostate cancer just because I or a certain number of people believe such?

If studies were free or money grew on trees, I might agree with the concept of “then do the test”.

We already have a science for finding the next aspirin, it’s called pharmaceuticals. Well done studies of herbal remedies and supplements are not CAM, they are science. Lumping them in with CAM is a way of adding validity to CAM. It’s either Scientific medicine or it’s not; there’s really no such thing as complementary medicine. For me, CAM stands for Complete Alternative to Medicine.

All of these are idealogically silly to you, based on your opinions and beliefs.

Nonetheelss, the scientific method does not care whether these theories fit your beliefs.

Your theories and beliefs may generally be sopt-on, but there is no systematic testing of validity built into your system of belifs, opinions, and experiences. Close, but not quite. Medical and scientific education on top of a decent natural sciences/math/physics background is a great start.

But science does not care.

Bring a hypothesis to science, and let science evaluate the validity of the claim.

Rikkki may or may not work. Sure, I agree that it is foolish. But just set up the test, with a disprovable hypothesis. Once you actually manage to corral the millions of random, loosely connected thoughts that come out of th eminds of the CAM folks. Pin these folks down to at least one testable hyptohesis. Their claim. Their methods. Agreed-upon criteria for measuring success or failure.

Then do the test.

Dispassionately.

When their kooky hypothesis fails, allow them to wander off with silly tag-lines about working outside of the scientific paradigm, etc. But when they want to come back and start arguiing, repeat the process noted above.

Allow them to refine hypothesis, refine the operationalization of their constructs, allow them to redefine the outcomes, etc.

Then repeat.

The simple power of evidence.

If Rikki heals a fractured wrist, then if we get a verified, true-blue CAM Rikki person to conduct Rikkki under the most optimal conditions (new age music, incense, mood lighting, etc.), for one hundred broken-wrist cases (per the Rikki advocates’ case definition, so they can’t later claim that you fixed the contest), and measure outcomes. Cetainly, if a Rikkki master declares: Rikkki fixes a broken wrist,” then ask them how many out of 100 patients should be healed.

Then let science steamroll on over the whole issue.

Let them head off agai nwith the various loosely constructed complaints about the dominant paradigm, alternate paradigms of knowledge, etc.

When the Rikkki masters turn to come back at ya, bring up that “science” idea again, and agree to test any claim, using ALL of their claims, measures, and outcomes, then test again.

This is the value I see in the Govt testing ACM.

There could actually be an herbal supplement out there, or some spice, that actually could be superior to some recognized treatment. The next aspirin.

Well, let’s discover it.

so, the value is to 1. shut up the various claims, at least for those who are intersted in truth versus opinion 2: discover what actually might work.