Guerilla enlightenment: Defending science online

[xchrom]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428626.300-guerilla-enlightenment-defending-science-online.html

ALTERNATIVE medicine has never enjoyed such popularity and respect. Therapies once dubbed "pseudoscience" or "quackery" are now typically referred to as "alternative", "complementary" or "holistic". Practices that used to circulate on the fringes are now accepted as mainstream.

The rise of alternative medicine poses a problem for defenders of science. Many see the fightback as a lost cause. I don't. I believe that the factors that allow quackery to prosper can and are being harnessed for a counter-revolution in defence of science.

In the past, those exploring alternative lifestyles joined groups of like-minded people and subscribed to countercultural magazines. They now participate in online communities and surf the internet, where they encounter alternative websites by the dozen, but also come across mainstream scientific viewpoints.

The web has proved to be a crucial mobilising instrument for pro-science activists. When the British Chiropractic Association sued writer Simon Singh for libel, his supporters used Twitter and Facebook to keep abreast of the case. A community of pro-science activists and bloggers has also sprung up. Their actions are not merely intellectual. Singh's supporters flooded the British Chiropractic Association with complaints about individual chiropractors, all of which required investigation.


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[TheWraith]

1. Kicked and recommended. nt

[MineralMan]

2. We need to keep calling quackery what it is.

Homeopathy, "crystal healing," and other completely worthless "alternatives" need to be exposed for the quackery they are. Other things like using "supplements" instead of proper treatments need to be shown to be dangerous to people's health through inaction. The truth is what is needed, and plenty of it. Sometimes, we're to willing to use the euphemisms created by the "alternative health" business. We should not do that.

[ThatMan]

3. Enough is enough!

Alt med isn't useless because scientists are close-minded. It's useless because it doesn't work whenever reviewed by anyone. The United States has spent over $3 billion taxpayer money over 20 years on the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and has failed to prove that a SINGLE therapy works. We need to get the word out of this waste of cash and the deception that happens at the expense of people's pocket money.

Alt med works no better than self-deception, placebo, belief, and expectation. Its "miraculous results" follow the exact same pattern as religious miracles, faith, and other cult-like movements. Beliefs, opinions, and ideologies HAVE NO PLACE in medicine. Medicine is a SCIENCE.

[HuckleB]

4. Recommended and kicked.