“Alternative Medicine” Versus (sigh) Science

My humanist society recently hosted a talk by Abhijit Chanda, founder of “Rationable,” a YouTube channel. (The name does not refer to things subject to rationing, but rather rationality.) He zoomed in from India, speaking about “Alternative Health Practices and Pseudoscience.”

A starting point was to query reasons for the popularity of “alternative” medicine as opposed to the conventional (real) sort. Chanda characterized the latter, in America, as not exactly user-friendly. People recoil from giant institutions like government, insurance companies, and big pharma. Mainstream doctors often seem cold and ...