The colorful new name for unproven, snake-oil medicine is “Esoteric Medicine”. It includes Alternative, Complementary, Holistic, Integrative, and Natural. Just a small sampling of these counterfeit medicines are: acupuncture, aromatherapy, chiropractic, colonic irrigation, detox therapies, dietary supplements, energy healing, herbal medicine, homeopathy, reflexology, Reiki, and Traditional Chinese Medicine. Following are eight basic fallacies and deceptions Esoteric Medicine (EM) uses to successfully dupe the unsuspecting.
Appeal to popularity and appeal to authority
“The
‘appeal to popularity’ holds that something is true because many people believe
in it. Similarly, the ‘appeal to authority’ suggests that a notion is valid
because people or organisations of high standing share the belief. Both are
fallacies frequently employed by proponents of EM (Esoteric medicine) for
supporting their views, attitudes, conclusions and businesses. Put simply, the
arguments run along the following lines: lots of people use EM and it is
supported even by VIPs as well as other prominent authorities, including Nobel
Prize winners. As they would hardly support nonsense, EM must be good ….. Medicine
is no popularity contest. Even people of high standing make mistakes, and Noble
Prize winners can be wrong—particularly, if they leave their field of
expertise. Nothing can replace sound evidence, certainly not creed or opinion.”
Post hoc fallacy
“This
fallacy supposes that an event X that is preceded by another event Y must be
caused by Y. If we apply a treatment and our patient subsequently gets better,
we tend to assume that the improvement was due to our therapy. The fallacy is
widespread not just in EM but in all areas of healthcare. It ignores that any
clinical improvement can be due to a range of phenomena, for instance: placebo
effects, regression towards the mean, or the natural history of the disease.
“This
means that even ineffective or slightly harmful therapies can appear to be
effective. Practitioners of EM seem particularly prone to convincing themselves
and their patients that EM is the true cause of any positive clinical outcome.
In cases where no improvement occurred, they tend to claim that without their
EM, things would be even worse. And if the clinical situation deteriorates
after EM, they triumphantly put this down to the notion that an optimally chosen
treatment will often bring about a ‘healing crisis’ which allegedly is an
excellent sign of imminent recovery.”
Power of Placebo
If
you truly believe some ineffective drug or treatment will work, it actually
does work in some cases. Proponents of Esoteric Medicine argue that if placebo does
occasionally work, modern medicine should accept it as a legitimate cure.
Serious precaution is warranted:
“This
new ‘scientific quackery’ can do a lot of damage; thus, we must be very
cautious and vigilant as to how the findings of hard science are exploited. The
study of the biology of these vulnerable aspects of mankind may unravel new
mechanisms of how our brain works, but it may have a profound negative impact
on our society as well. We cannot accept a world where expectations can be
enhanced with any means and by anybody.
“This
is a perspective that would surely be worrisome and dangerous. I believe that
some reflections are necessary in order to avoid a regression of medicine to
past times, in which quackery and shamanism were dominant. Unfortunately, the
new knowledge about placebos by hard science is now backfiring on it. What we
need to do is to stop for a while and reflect on what we are doing and how we
want to move forward. A crucial question to answer is, Does placebo research
boost pseudoscience?”
Appeal to Tradition
“Many
forms of EM have a long history, and proponents use this fact to convince the
public of its value. Any treatment that has passed ‘the test of time’, they
argue, must be effective and safe. After all, people are not stupid; why would
they persist in using such treatments if they did not work or if it caused
harm? Some enthusiasts even view the ‘test of time’ as significantly more
relevant than any objective evaluation of therapeutic effectiveness. Clinical
trials, they insist, are of necessity artificial and relatively small-scale,
while tradition is real and large-scale; EM has been field-tested on millions
for millennia, they believe. A long history of use is therefore a more
conclusive test than science can ever provide.
“An
established tradition can, of course, be a valuable indicator suggesting that a
given treatment might be safe and effective. This might constitute a relevant
stimulus for further research, but it never can provide solid proof.
Furthermore, a long history might also just indicate that the origins of the
therapy in question reach back to the days when the basic medical sciences such
as anatomy, biochemistry and physiology were in their infancy; in this case, it
would merely disclose not a strength but a significant weakness in its
foundations.”
EM is Ethical
“Most
of its proponents feel that, generally speaking, EM is ethical. The truth,
however, is that EM involves a myriad of serious ethical issues that are rarely
addressed and therefore largely unresolved. Arguably, elementary rules of
medical ethics are being violated daily when:
----EM
practitioners make unsubstantiated claims about their treatments
----Educational
institutions teach EM-related concepts that fly in the face of science
----Pharmacists
sell EM products to their unsuspecting customers
----Journals
of EM publish fatally flawed papers that promote EM use
----Researchers
conduct studies of EM that are deigned to generate a positive result
----EM
clinicians treat patients without informed consent”
The Lie of Informed Consent
“A
patient with fatigue and headaches consults a non-medically trained
chiropractor. The chiropractor takes a history, conducts a physical examination,
tells the patient that the headaches are due to spinal misalignments which he
suggests treating with spinal manipulations, and proceeds to apply his
treatments. The chiropractor has no means to obtain informed consent because:
----He
has insufficient knowledge of other therapeutic options
----He
is biased as to the effectiveness of spinal manipulations
----He
believes that they are risk-free
----He
has an overt conflict of interest (he earns his money by applying his
treatments).
“Put
simply, informed consent requires knowledge that EM practitioners without
medical training often do not possess. Moreover, it requires a lack of
financial interest such that the clinician is not in danger of losing out on
some income, if he advises his patient not to receive treatment from him.
Finally, informed consent must be based on information about the treatment.
Arguably, this should include explanations on how it works. For many EMs, this
information simply is not available. If informed consent is usually not
provided or even impossible, we have to conclude that EM, as it is practiced in
most countries today, is not ethical.”
EM Cannot Be Scientifically Tested
“Another
fallacy holds that EM defies science or extends beyond the boundaries of
science as it is currently understood. Therefore, proponents claim, it cannot
be tested in the same way as one would test conventional treatments.
Practitioners of EM often argue that their therapy is holistic, individualized,
complex, that it relies on subtle, unquantifiable energies.
“These
attributes, they feel, mean that it cannot be squeezed into the straitjacket of
reductionist science such as controlled clinical trials. And in any case, they
insist, scientific knowledge is over-rated; after all, science is not the only
way of knowing or finding the truth: there are many things in heaven and earth
which science will never be able to explain.
“Science
does indeed have its limitations; nobody would deny that. Yet, when it comes to
testing therapeutic claims, science provides us with a comprehensive set of
effective tools for checking their validity. Even if the hypothesis is that a
holistic, individualized and complex form of energy healing makes patients
somehow feel better, live longer or experience life more wholesomely, the hypothesis
is scientifically testable.
“And
even if, for a particular claim, no validated outcome measure exists,
scientists would certainly be able to develop one. The notion of 'my therapy
defies scientific testing’ is thus little more than a case of special pleading
which discloses a lack of understanding as to what science can achieve—or, more
likely, a fear of being tested and found wanting—or, even more likely, an
attempt to mislead consumers.”
EM is Natural and Hence Harmless
“An
entire industry has developed around the fallacious concept that because
something is natural it cannot do any harm. Implicit in this notion is the
perception that conventional medicine is somehow inherently unnatural, relying
heavily on harmful synthetic chemicals. Nature, by contrast, is pictured as
benign and natural remedies are therefore not just intrinsically superior but
also safer.
“While
undoubtedly clever for marketing purposes, this argument is nevertheless false
and, in many instances, outright dangerous. Not all forms of EM are natural or
benign. For instance, there is nothing natural in
----Sticking
needles into a patient’s body (as in acupuncture)
----Endlessly
diluting and shaking a medicine (as in homoeopathy)
----Introducing
gallons of tepid coffee to the large intestine via the rectum (as in the coffee
enemas used by some EM practitioners)
----Forcing
vertebral joints beyond their physiological range of movement (as done by
chiropractors during spinal manipulation)”
Conclusion
“The
above and many other fallacies are regularly used in EM as tools with one
common purpose: to mislead the public such that even the most extravagant
absurdities of EM might appear more plausible. Collectively they help foster
and perpetuate a culture of unreason that is essential for EM to thrive. They
misguide us to make wrong and potentially harmful decisions, they are an attack
on rationality, and they constitute treason against progress in healthcare. The
best protection against these fallacies is to disclose them for what they are:
errors of logic and falsehoods.”
Source
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Photo: https://www.nutshell.com/blog/sales-manipulation-vs-deception/
Jerry De Luca is a Christian freelance writer who loves perusing dozens of interesting and informative publications. When he finds any useful info he summarizes it, taking the main points, and creates a (hopefully) helpful blog post.
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