Modified 9/22/2009 9:26 a.m.
Here is a link to an analysis of the study linked below supposedly proving the efficacy of an alt-med treatment for Melanoma. Not to be crass, but it appears it's the UCF FTW!
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I love the Scientific Method.
At my University, there is a course on the Scientific Method that all
BA students are required to take in order to get their degree. Since my major is Science and Technology, the Scientific Method has permeated all of my core classes, and informs all my academic writing.
I started thinking about this yesterday after a completely
unproductive exchange with some proponents of "alt med." The proponents kept saying things like
Modern medicine does not work.
Evidently small pox vaccinations, penicillin and anti-viral medication (all products of the scientific method) are all
epic fails.
and
The only evidence we should ever need is the efficacy of the protocol you are undertaking in the cure of life-threatening diseases and if that works in practice and results in normal longevity...
The "It worked for me!" methodology of diagnoses and treatment.
and
I am referring to actual, tangible and successful results which have no need for the "scientific method" as you call it.
Because I evidently pulled the "scientific method" out of my ass to serve my nefarious purposes.
Putting the snarkiness aside for the moment, what I parsed from this exchange was that alt-med proponents believe their modalities work because they either had a personal experience where they were "cured" by them, or they heard about someone who was "cured" by them. My repeated, ever-more-shrill requests for actual clinical trials using the scientific method were met with accusations of being kept down by the "Man," the "Man" in this case being Big Pharma and the Medical Industrial Complex.
Finally I was directed to
this, a retrospective meta-analysis. There was no control group, no double-blind, no randomization of participants.* I'm not a doctor, but I do understand the scientific method, and this is not a clinical trial or a well constructed study. What I will concede is that the information was interesting enough to me as a layman that I think further study by qualified professionals wouldn't be uncalled for.
Here's the thing that these folks don't seem to understand. In science, anecdotes are the
beginning of the process, not the
end. Say a doctor comes up with a
new therapy:
...salt and water management, restricting sodium and supplementing potassium. It provides oral hyperalimentation of nutrients, while forcing fluids, by hourly administration of raw vegetable and fruit juices. Caloric utilization rates are enhanced through thyroid administration, while caloric content of the diet is limited (2,600 - 3,200 cal/day) by a very low fat, lactovegetarian diet. Protein is temporarily restricted. Coffee enemas are administered pro re nata (as frequently as every 4 hours) to improve nutrition, and to relieve pain.
And say this doctor reports that this therapy cures melanoma. This is big news, right? Melanoma kills people, and healers are interested in preventing that outcome, right? There's no earthly reason that this therapy shouldn't be in wide-spread use, provided the proponents can prove their claims in a repeatable way. And here's the rub:
proof is required. Proof in the form of a clinical trial of their treatment, using standard clinical trial construction (i.e., randomized, controlled, double blind). If the results indicate the therapy works, then hurray! A new treatment for melanoma is born, and survival rates go up. Sweet vindication!
What you
don't get to do is claim that your coffee enemas improve nutrition and relieve pain, and provide only anecdotal "evidence." Because that's not how science works
. If you want to be taken seriously by scientists, then you have have to actually, you know,
do some science.The scientific method is not "outdated;" it's not "irrelevant." It's simply a process. A process that works especially well in empirical disciplines such as medicine, and guards against such common problems as confirmation bias. The scientific method helps us to determine the truth of factual claims such as whether or not the Gerson therapy reviewed in the link actually
works. The "rules" of science apply to every discipline, and acting like you're in some way persecuted because you're held to the same standard as everyone else only exposes the weakness in your argument.
You see, assuming that it "works" based on the stories of a few individuals, with no clinical trial or controls, introduces all sorts of logical biases and fallacies into the process. As described by Michael Shermer in
Why People Believe Weird Things:Stories about how your Aunt Mary's cancer was cured by watching Marx brothers movies or taking a liver extract from castrated chickens are meaningless. The cancer might have gone into remission on its own, which some cancers do; or it might have been misdiagnosed; or, or, or...What we need are controlled experiments, not anecdotes. We need 100 subjects with cancer, all properly diagnosed and matched. Then we need 25 of the subjects to watch Marx brothers movies, 25 to watch Alfred Hitchcock movies, 25 to watch the news, and 25 to watch nothing. Then we need to deduct the average rate of remission for this type of cancer and then analyze the data for statistically significant differences between the groups. If there are statistically significant differences, we better get confirmation from other scientists who have conducted their own experiments separate from ours before we hold a press conference to announce the cure for cancer.
The alt-med crowd seems to want to go straight from "Aunt Mary cured her cancer by watching Marx brothers movies" to "hold a press conference to announce the cure for cancer."
I'm not against alt-med on the face of it. I don't think modern medicine has all the answers, or has a corner on the truth. But I believe in the process. While you
might be able to make a case that the industrial medical complex has a vested interest in discrediting alt-med, you can't make the same claim about the scientific method. It is utterly and completely impartial. There is nothing to prevent alt-med proponents from embracing the scientific method as a tool to proving the efficacy of their claims. They simply choose not to, for reasons of their own. And until they do, it's unlikely that they'll be taken seriously by anyone in the mainstream.
*Please note that I make no claims and give no opinions about the efficacy of the therapy detailed in the link - I'm not a doctor, and I don't know enough about physiology, cell biology or oncology to have an informed opinion. I'd be interested in the opinion of those regular readers who have related experience or education.