How about the idea that you can make tea from the leaves and bark of a willow tree, and use it to treat fevers and aches and pains? Does that sound like a ridiculous folk remedy?
But I will not stand for people recommending alternative medicine for absolutely everything. I already had to deal with a family member doing just that, forcing random concoctions of nonsense onto a family member suffering from cancer and attempting to divert them from actual treatment. Especially when they act like they're better than doctors and can't back up their recommendations with anything remotely resembling research.
Within that context, you're the one being disingenuous by likening it to diverting people from actual treatment and trying random concoctions for cancer treatment.
I totally agree. The anti-vaxxers, for instance, are incredibly dangerous not just to the health of individuals, but to modern civilization.
My point is that just because something is a folk remedy, or predates the invention of the scientific method, doesn't mean it's inherently without value. Rigorous scientific studies can and should be done on these sorts of things—I don't think anyone should blindly accept a folk remedy, especially one contraindicated by proper research.
But there is a certain dismissiveness amongst many folks like us of anything not invented by the pharmaceutical industry that may do us all a disservice.
I don't think that's true. The cures don't need to be invented by the pharmaceutical industry to be taken seriously. But they do need to be studied and commercialized by the pharmaceutical industry to be taken seriously.
How could you take seriously a pharmaceutical product which is rejected by its own industry? Obviously it's not commercializable in an honest way if that's the case, or someone would have done it by now.