"In the absence of such empirical evidence I cannot accept that so called alternative medicine should be held in the same, or even close to the same, regard as scientific based medicine."
I think you are slightly missing my point. There might be a good scientific basis for a so-called 'alternative' therapy. However, the inbuilt bias in our testing regime toward patentable pharmaceuticals ( which is almost inevitable given that it is indeed as you say a "long and incredibly expensive process" to go through tests ) means that this alternative therapy will never be tested in the same way so the science will not be tested.
Clearly, we cannot simply assume that an alternative therapy is effective. Just as clearly, in my opinion, we cannot assume that the lack of conventional clinical trials indicates that the alternative therapy is ineffective. The lack of clinical trials is not because the alternative treatment is useless (though it might well be). The lack of clinical trials is simply because the alternative treatment cannot be easily monetised, so there is no incentive to put it through the "long and incredibly expensive process" to which you refer. In short, the lack of trials simply tells us nothing about the efficacy (or non-efficacy) of the alternative therapy.
The reality is that modern medicine does not give us any objective tool in which to measure the alternative therapy, and we must manage as best we can in the absence of such a tool. My personal guide is that an alternative remedy should :
A. Be unlikely to harm me; (I set this bar fairly high - but once I am sure something is harmless, I am not overly demanding - this point is much more important to me than B and C below)
B. Ideally, have some plausible scientific rationale, albeit an untested one, or at least be capable of having a scientific rationale. ( so for example, I am quite prepared to try drinking raw cabbage juice to cure an ulcer, but I won't go to the old geezer - there's one in every small town - who has the cure of ringworm by laying his hands on my hands. These are fictional examples; I am plagued by neither ulcers nor ringworm.........)
C. Be an established folk remedy somewhere, ideally for thousands of years. This is a little bit scientific in the sense of respecting Darwinian principles and assuming that they apply to good ideas in much the same way as they apply to good mutations. I figure that a folk remedy which just doesn't work is less likely to survive than one which does.
I think you are slightly missing my point. There might be a good scientific basis for a so-called 'alternative' therapy. However, the inbuilt bias in our testing regime toward patentable pharmaceuticals ( which is almost inevitable given that it is indeed as you say a "long and incredibly expensive process" to go through tests ) means that this alternative therapy will never be tested in the same way so the science will not be tested.
Clearly, we cannot simply assume that an alternative therapy is effective. Just as clearly, in my opinion, we cannot assume that the lack of conventional clinical trials indicates that the alternative therapy is ineffective. The lack of clinical trials is not because the alternative treatment is useless (though it might well be). The lack of clinical trials is simply because the alternative treatment cannot be easily monetised, so there is no incentive to put it through the "long and incredibly expensive process" to which you refer. In short, the lack of trials simply tells us nothing about the efficacy (or non-efficacy) of the alternative therapy.
The reality is that modern medicine does not give us any objective tool in which to measure the alternative therapy, and we must manage as best we can in the absence of such a tool. My personal guide is that an alternative remedy should :
A. Be unlikely to harm me; (I set this bar fairly high - but once I am sure something is harmless, I am not overly demanding - this point is much more important to me than B and C below)
B. Ideally, have some plausible scientific rationale, albeit an untested one, or at least be capable of having a scientific rationale. ( so for example, I am quite prepared to try drinking raw cabbage juice to cure an ulcer, but I won't go to the old geezer - there's one in every small town - who has the cure of ringworm by laying his hands on my hands. These are fictional examples; I am plagued by neither ulcers nor ringworm.........)
C. Be an established folk remedy somewhere, ideally for thousands of years. This is a little bit scientific in the sense of respecting Darwinian principles and assuming that they apply to good ideas in much the same way as they apply to good mutations. I figure that a folk remedy which just doesn't work is less likely to survive than one which does.
