Pathology of an Old Disease (Alternativitis Intransigens) - Part I of II
One of the fundamental tenets of open scientific inquiry is that a theory or hypothesis that has consistently been shown to be untenable is destined for the scrapheap of worthless ideas. Faced with this operating principle most people would readily agree that it is an eminently reasonable one. However, when it comes to applying it in practice, many people prefer to jettison said principle, choosing instead to cling unreasonably to the unreasonable. This phenomenon is especially rife in the domain where so-called New Age and/or post-modernist thinking are called into question, and nowhere more obviously dangerous than in their sub-genre of alternative medicine.
The intention of this essay is not to provide a detailed exposition of the specific failings of particular instances of such erroneous thinking; rather, the intention is to examine in a broader context the consequences, actual as well as potential, that can and do ensue from it, especially where alternative, or complementary, medicine is implicated since the consequences of error in this arena can be both severe and immediate. Also, it is not intended to portray medical science and the medical profession as paragons of faultlessness (which they aren’t), or even to apologise for their mistakes. Nor is it meant to suggest that absolutely all forms of alternative medicine are inherently and uniformly phoney.
Of late, medical science has received an alarmingly disproportionate amount of bad press, whereas alternative medicine is generally perceived to be, at worst, harmless. Given the aforementioned immediacy and severity of mistakes or bad judgement in matters medical, it is not surprising that any such occurrences are reported on extensively. However, this gravity alone does not sufficiently explain either the unequal attention bestowed on conventional medicine’s failings, or the often-venomous glee that attaches to retellings of such incidences, usually accompanied by such asinine pronouncements as, “See, these doctors have no clue. If she had worn this naturally occurring, five-sided, cleansed quartz crystal* to ward off bad energies, she wouldn’t have died.”
On the other hand, everyone has heard, and many believe themselves to be the subject of, anecdotes telling of a homeopath, acupuncturist, herbalist, reflexologist, who has diagnosed and cured diseases that “conventional medicine deemed unknown or incurable,” but, even if such anecdotes are true (most are vastly overstated or simply untrue) and even if they could be considered good evidence (which they cannot), we hardly ever hear of the failings of alternative medicine, such failings being far more common than appearance might suggest. As an aside, it is also worth noting that personal experience in such matters does not comprise good evidence in support of any form of medicine, whether conventional or alternative, since human physiology is hugely complex and relief from or cure of disease can result from any number of other, less apparent, factors, so that one cannot reliably ascribe particular instances of such relief or cure to a specific unproven cause. The validity or otherwise of a proposed curative or diagnostic technique is established through the rigours of clinical trials.
Why does this disparity in the nature of the attention given to conventional and alternative medicine exist? The reason is largely that New Age post-modern thinking has browbeaten society at large into accepting, or at least remaining silent on, two fallacious ideas. Firstly, we are expected to agree that reality is subjective, and secondly, that it is therefore not only impolite and rude, but wholly invalid to point out the deficiencies in someone else’s beliefs. But if reality were indeed subjective, the upshot of my throwing you off the top of a 50-storey building would then depend on our individual cultural and philosophical stances, an assertion that is patently absurd. Also, most action is predicated on thought and deliberation, so that deficient thought is likely to produce inappropriate action. This last is the motivation behind endeavours to curtail hate-speech, for example, and presents sufficient warrant for correcting demonstrably erroneous beliefs, especially where such might have significant deleterious consequences. We are thus faced with the curious situation wherein criticism of alternative medicine is not permissible for reasons of political expediency, while such censure implicitly demands of conventional medicine that it improve, which indeed it does, but then further reproach is levelled at it for a perceived lack of celerity.
In the context of alternative medicine, its exponents have for many years been bleating about wanting their legitimacy recognised by the orthodoxy. Medical science has subjected a great many of complementary medicine’s claims to detailed scrutiny, often repeatedly and always by exactly the same rules and criteria that are applied to its own ruminations. Homeopathy, iridology, aromatherapy, naturopathy, applied kinesiology, and the like have one and all uniformly been found wanting, yet their practitioners and proponents refuse to accept these verdicts. Each obstinately persists in trumpeting without modification the same old “explanations” and “benefits” of its own particular quackery, despite the unequivocal demonstrations of the hollowness of their respective claims.
We hear of mysterious meridians (that no one other than adherents can reliably find), ephemeral energies (that no one other than adherents can hope to detect), intangible interconnections (that no one other than adherents can appreciate), and vanishing vibrations (that no one other than adherents can measure), and are expected to believe in the objective existence of such. Arbitrary conjectures posing as facts and/or good science are offered, often being in direct and blatant conflict with the actual findings of science. Such explanations are clearly spurious since they do not explain anything – in the main they are post hoc inventions generated for the sole purpose of bolstering the practitioner’s own belief, convincing the mildly sceptical and ensuring continued support from the gullible by adding a superficial gloss of seeming reasonableness disguised in a cloak of pseudo-scientific jargon. Needless to say, the proponent of such ideas is now left with additional facts or postulates to prove and explicate. When pressed on these matters, the proponent will almost invariably attempt to escape by asserting the subjectivity of what is real, and thereby wrongly assume that his or her case is proved.
In contrast, medical science has changed with and adapted to new and/or discordant evidence, such usually emerging from painstaking and concerted research effort. This adaptability lies at the core of its successes. Thus, for example, we have the germ theory of disease replacing the idea that disease is the result of bad blood or an unbalanced humour. Not one of medical science’s successes is in any way attributable to practitioners of alternative medicine, a fact that is never mentioned but often contested by alternativists. Helicobacter pylori, the bacterium responsible for most peptic ulcers, was not identified, not hypothesised, not even suspected, by a crystal healer, iridologist, chiropractor or reflexologist, but by medical scientists. Similarly, smallpox and tuberculosis did not almost completely disappear at the hands (or noses) of any aromatherapists. Herbalists have been heard to claim for themselves successes in conventional circles regarding the use of certain plants to cure specific diseases, but this is not wholly accurate. The overwhelming majority of cases where an herb is found to be efficacious stems from folk wisdom, rather than from the promptings of an herbalist. In addition, the active ingredient of the herb is always identified and isolated (and possibly improved upon as derivative substances) by scientists, and not by herbalists, and many herbalist “cures” have been shown to be bogus.
Alternative medicine largely disdains objective research initiatives, preferring to rely on the supposed superiority of “revealed” or “ancient” wisdom, which is trotted out as unassailable at every opportunity. Any rational appraisal must regard such obdurate inflexibility with deep suspicion, particularly in view of the contrary evidence mentioned above. The alternativist often compounds his conceit with his favourite portrayal of medical science as a lethargic and narrow-minded monolith of ponderous inertia, when the rapidly growing number of peer-reviewed medical journals and published papers, not to mention advances in knowledge, all militate against this characterisation and expose its attendant irony: the alternativist lobby is much more accurately exemplified by such a description. Conventional medicine’s failures and shortcomings may be many, and any fair-minded assessment will conclude this to be a result of the complexity of the subject; nevertheless, its remarkable successes continue to multiply and are grounded in objectivity, gauged by the litmus-test of reality, and far outweigh those credited, whether correctly or not, to alternative medicine. Furthermore, conventional medicine has sufficient confidence to admit its weaknesses (and to address these by expending appropriate remedial effort), whereas much alternative medicine is given to pretending complete and infallible erudition.
A little reflection will then reveal the alternativist’s disingenuous hypocrisy for what it really is: he wants the respect, if not adulation, of the medical science fraternity, but refuses to abide by its rules. The desire for such recognition from the orthodoxy is not hard to fathom. Such recognition would bolster the alternativist practitioner’s respectability, not to mention his marketability. But refusing to play by the rules, i.e. refusing to abandon concepts that have time and again been shown to be little else beside hot air, makes it very difficult to accord respect, and derisive scorn is far more apt a response. Further reflection reveals that complementary medicine therefore does not even qualify as “medicine” at all, and the alternativist practitioner’s ministrations are in principle no different to those of a shaman consulting his tribal ancestors’ spirits for a diagnosis of, and cure for, an ailing member of his clan, since both rest their practices on equally frivolous epistemologies. Worse yet, the alternativist is generally in a far better position than the shaman to assess and judge the merit of his own beliefs, given his cultural and educational background. The question also arises why alternative medicine is so well represented in affluent Western societies, while poor and underdeveloped communities clamour for conventional Western medicine. The answer is fairly simple and self-evident: Western medicine just works better.
Continued…
* Consult a geologist or crystallographer about such a quartz crystal, especially the “five-sided” part.