Coming to terms with alternative medicine rationally
I used to be very heavily prejudiced against homeopathy and alternative medicines (acupuncture, aromatherapy, reflexology, you name it), for the following reasons:
- the homeopathic system is founded on pure dogma (law of similars); it is invoked repeatedly, without having been put to the test in the first place.
- the theoretical models and the underlying concepts invoked are disconnected from the rest of science.
- the more serious the clinical trials, the less evidence there was in support of an efficacy above placebo effect. It also seemed rather suspicious that homeopathic theory (one doctor, one patient, one treatment) had arguments to refuse randomized double-blind clinical trials as adequate evidence.
Now that I have been married for ten year to someone who feeds me latin-named sugar grains on a regular basis, I will share with you how I managed to come to terms with homeopathy in a rational way, without having to split my personality or sell my soul. I confess it is a rather jesuitic move. Such moves tend to be quite customary to me, and it makes me wonder whether I would be able to keep any sort of principles in troubled times, but this is another matter altogether.