Dismantling the rhetoric of alternative medicine: Smokescreens, errors, conspiracies, and follies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.8.10004Keywords:
alternative medicine, fallacies, pseudoscience, argumentation
Abstract
Alternative medicine has a high social prevalence, being promoted by well organized groups that have developed an intricate rhetoric in order to self-justify in the absence of evidence. This article will analyse some of these arguments, some of their fallacies – ad populum, ad ignorantiam –, other styles of reasoning – conspiracy theories – and other misconceptions of scientific concepts – placebo effect, scientific authority. The objective will be to highlight the poverty of the rhetoric of proponents of alternative medicine, with special emphasis on the dangers for the consumer.
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Author Biographies
Edzard Ernst, University of Exeter (United Kingdom).
Angelo Fasce, University of Valencia (Spain).
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