Question (not being sarcastic): what's the difference between 'science-based medicine' and 'evidence-based medicine'? I did a quick Wikipedia search, but the former just redirects to the latter.
To quote the SBM blog's about page:
"Good science is the best and only way to determine which treatments and products are truly safe and effective. That idea is already formalized in a movement known as evidence-based medicine (EBM). EBM is a vital and positive influence on the practice of medicine, but it has limitations and problems in practice: it often overemphasizes the value of evidence from clinical trials alone, with some unintended consequences, such as taxpayer dollars spent on “more research” of questionable value. The idea of SBM is not to compete with EBM, but a call to enhance it with a broader view: to answer the question “what works?” we must give more importance to our cumulative scientific knowledge from all relevant disciplines."
You can find the original Science Based Medicine announcement on their blog http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/hello-world/ and there's a decent bit of background on Pain Science https://www.painscience.com/articles/ebm-vs-sbm.php as well.
You do not test basic physical laws, you just look them up.
Downvoters: Please explain. I have no idea about what any of SBM or EBM is, and I hadn’t even heard about any of them before now. This is genuinely what I what to know when I encounter the terms.
For example, homeopathy states that a remedy becomes stronger the more dilute it becomes - i.e. the lower the dose, the stronger the effect. This defies the dose-response relationship between an active ingredient and its effect. Further, it states that even when no more of the active ingredient remains, it can still have an effect.
SBM would say homeopathy isn't worth studying because it has no plausibility based on what we know of medicine and physics.
EBM would say let's test it and see what we get.
The problem is that if you test the same thing enough times, or measure enough variables, and then discard the ones that don't meet your desired outcome, you can gather "evidence" for basically anything.
SBM would say weak evidence for a claim like homeopathy is meaningless, as the claim is extraordinary (it overturns physics), so you need stronger evidence than you might accept for a less exceptional claim. EBM doesn't make that judgment, it treats all evidence as equally valid.
There is a treatment for trauma (PTSD etc.) called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) which has over 20 years of statistical evidence backing up it's efficacy. To date, no-one really knows how it works (there are a few good theories, and hopefully modern neuroscience can help here).
Currently, it's "EBM". There is a huge amount of evidence to show it works, but no proven theory as to why.
It's not "SBM" yet, as there still isn't a demonstrable mechanism or theory that describes why it works.
homeopathy, antivaxers and scientoligists don't even have any evidence to show they work. They don't even count as "EBM".
SBM, despite the name, believes that using science to study medical treatments is often a waste of money regardless of whether a treatment is very effective or completely ineffective; their claim is that there will always be some studies that say the treatment works and other studies that say the treatment doesn't work, and spending more money will just yield more unreliable data. They therefore believe that the bulk of scientific resources should be dedicated to research reinforces society's prior beliefs, and that research on the efficacy of any given drug should be weighted based on society's prior beliefs. You can read more about this philosophy here:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/hello-world/
If it seems somewhat muddled and handwavy as to how exactly prior beliefs and evidence should be weighted, well, this is why I personally think of SBM as the 'white person stamp of approval' approach to medicine. But certainly they have a point that a lot of medical research is complete crap.
I also presume that there is a more important aspect. If society believes that homeopathy works and that vaccines cause autism, that would be good cause to conduct very rigorous, credible (and above all media-friendly) experiments testing those beliefs.
If society believes that eating too many eggs is bad for you, test it. If we believe drinking red wine is good for you, test it. If we believe reptilian aliens are using sodium fluoride in the water supply as an adjuvant for their mind control rays, test it.
I presume, without knowing, that this particular aspect of SBM is very much about countering all the junk science hucksters stowing away on the gravy train, just because no one bothers to grab their freeloading asses and throw them off. So when Dr. Selschupplementsondeside (who may or may not be inspired by an actual person) touts a miracle cure on his cable television show, you put that on your list for potential testing and start tracking the hype versus scientific credibility ratio. If too many people start believing without knowing, you need some experimental results.
We can't test everything, so focus on testing the unanswered questions. Test the home remedies and traditional cures. Debunk the junk science.
I mean a large part of medical research is basically appropriating plant medicine from indigenous cultures and then sending people to prison for using the same medicine in plant form. So yes, racism does play a large part in the medical system.