Re:Magical Thinking in Complementary and Alternative Medicine (Skeptica

[Guest guest]

>

> http://csicop.org/si/2001-11/alternative.html

>

> I am interested to hear what people think of this article?

The article had a number of parts to it. There was an

anthropological analysis of what " magical thinking " is, a rather

feeble attempt to relate it to some neurological basis, and a

claim that the attraction of alternative medicine is based in

" magical thinking " .

I'm not an anthropologist. I'm willing to assume for the moment

that what he said about that part was correct. But I find his

attempt to root it in some neurological basis to be very weak and

his relation of alternative medicine to this supposed

neurological impulse to be something of a stretch.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a believer in alternative medicine.

I believe in " evidence based medicine " , and I believe that the

scientific method is the only valid way to determine what the

evidence is. If a witch doctor uses some herb to treat disease,

I'll accept that only if we find valid scientific evidence that

it works. If it does, then that herb leaves the realm of

" alternative " medicine and enters the realm of " evidence based "

medicine.

As to why people believe in alternative medicine without

evidence, it may be that s is right, but there are much

simpler explanations. These include:

1. People are desperate and want help, any help.

2. Most people, even in a relatively well educated country such

as the United States, have a very poor understanding of science.

They don't understand what scientific method is or why it's

fundamentally different from, and just as important,

fundamentally superior to, " magical thinking " . I don't know why

that is. Maybe we don't pay enough attention in school. Maybe

it's too easy to get through life without understanding science

and so there's no incentive for most people to work hard to learn

science.

3. People are scared. They're scared by their diseases and

they're scared by the medical treatments. The idea of getting

cut with scalpels, burned with x-rays, injected with nasty drugs,

becoming impotent or incontinent is pretty frightening. The idea

that they could go through all that and still not be cured is

especially frightening. When some alternative medicine quack

comes along and tells them they don't need to do any of that,

they can be cured by this nice cup of Essiac tea or eating these

tasty almonds, they jump at it.

Maybe s has some valid points. But I don't think we need

to have a neurological theory of magical thinking to account for

why people are attracted to alternative medicine. In a way, it's

perfectly logical.

If you don't understand science and don't know why alternative

medicine isn't just as good, and if you don't want to get cut,

burned, drugged, and damaged, and if you can be cured without all

that, who wouldn't go for it?

Maybe there is some neurological explanation of it, but it seems

to me that plain old ignorance and fear explain things pretty

well too.

Alan Meyer

ameyer2@...

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