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Comment by ekianjo | Hacker News Reader

Not sure. I have not seen the data myself, but I have heard more than one that acupuncture has had demonstrated benefits in clinical trials. And chinese medicine usually fares relatively well when put in clinical trials as well. I wouldn't discard everything out there, but homeopathy is, for me, clear BS - from the theory to the data generated.

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Here is a good overview of the evidence. At a high level, Acupunture is just as BS as Homeopathy. http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/reference/acupuncture/ reply

> chinese medicine usually fares relatively well when put in clinical trials as well.

You gotta be kidding me! Do you really believe that?

Traditional Chinese Medicine is based on an incorrect understanding of the body and an incorrect disease model.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_Chinese_medicine

>With an eye to the enormous Chinese market, pharmaceutical companies have explored the potential for creating new drugs from traditional remedies.[126] Successful results have however been scarce: a 2007 editorial in Nature said that while this may simply be because TCM is largely irrational pseudoscience, advocates have argued that it is because research had missed some key features of TCM, such as the subtle interrelationships between ingredients.[126]

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/acu.html

I am not saying there might be merit in some of the practices, however to say "usually fares relatively well when put in clinical trials" is incorrect.

Oh, I was not talking about the principles of Chinese Medicine itself, more about the plants they actually used. I know several of them have been put in clinical trials contexts, and while some did fail, several of them showed actual efficacy as medicines.

Stopped clocks put in clinical trial contexts have been shown to occasionally tell the actual time, too.

Mercury sulfide, asbestos ore and lead oxide might give you an erection thanks to the placebo effect, but pornography has been proven to be much more effective with fewer side effects, and can be delivered efficiently over the internet.

The amount of failures eclipses the amount of successes by a lot. I didn't say we shouldn't still study them, but the idea they are "pretty good usually" is false.

I believe OP is saying IF "alternative medicine" can pass the proper clinical trials, then it no longer deserves the "alternative" label, and is just medicine.

Let homeopathy go through trials. Let it fail & put these discussions to bed.

It has failed the trials, for a century. Sadly, it will not die.

How can you possibly not be aware that homeopathy has gone through trial after trial and has always failed? Have you ever used google or wikipedia? There are NOT two valid sides to this argument.

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