Talk:Alternative medicine/Archive 25

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Updating sources and text for lead and/or main body

The sources quoted below support the present version of the lead (and the earlier version quoted above),[4]) and it looks as though they could be used in place of, or in addition to, some of those now in the article. Editors and commenters concerned with improving the article will be aware that from the 1970s there has been and continues to be some professional, political and popular debate about "alternative medicine", but that the purpose of the article is to present information for readers, not to offer a soapbox for any one side of the debate. With that in mind, and in connection with earlier discussion on this page, a recent internet search showed that the two main public government websites, acting under the laws of their respective countries, both make the distinction between "alternative medicine" and "complementray medicine":

  • USA: "The National Institutes of Health (NIH), 'a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services'... is the nation’s medical research agency—supporting scientific studies that turn discovery into health."[5]. NIH is made up of 27 Institutes and Centers, each with a specific research agenda, often focusing on particular diseases or body systems. NIH leadership plays an active role in shaping the agency's research planning, activities, and outlook.[6]" "Scientific Leadership: NIH is the largest source of funding for medical research in the world, creating hundreds of thousands of high-quality jobs by funding thousands of scientists in universities and research institutions in every state across America and around the globe." "The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the United States government’s principal agency for protecting the health of all Americans and providing essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves. HHS represents almost a quarter of all federal outlays, and it administers more grant dollars than all other federal agencies combined. HHS’ Medicare program is the nation’s largest health insurer, handling more than 1 billion claims per year. Medicare and Medicaid together provide health care insurance for one in four Americans. HHS works closely with state and local governments, and many HHS-funded services are provided at the local level by state or county agencies, or through private sector grantees." [7]
    • QUOTE "Complementary, Alternative, or Integrative Health: What’s In a Name? ...people often use the words “alternative” and “complementary” interchangeably, but the two terms refer to different concepts: “Complementary” generally refers to using a non-mainstream approach together with conventional medicine. “Alternative” refers to using a non-mainstream approach in place of conventional medicine. True alternative medicine is not common. Most people use non-mainstream approaches along with conventional treatments. And the boundaries between complementary and conventional medicine overlap and change with time. For example, guided imagery and massage, both once considered complementary or alternative, are used regularly in some hospitals to help with pain management."[8]
  • UK: National Health Service (England)'s "NHS Choices is owned by the Department of Health. The site is governed by the NHS Choices Board and NHS Choices Operations Board, which watch over future developments, budgets and data quality of NHS Choices."... "All about complementary and alternative medicine"[9]
    • QUOTE from "'Alternative' and 'complementary' defined": "Although 'complementary and alternative' is often used as a single category, it can be useful to make a distinction between complementary and alternative medicine. This distinction is about two different ways of using these treatments":
-"Treatments are sometimes used to provide an experience that is pleasant in itself. This can include use alongside conventional treatments, to help a patient cope with a health condition. When used this way the treatment is not intended as an alternative to conventional treatment. The US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) says that use of treatments in this way can be called complementary medicine. Treatments are sometimes used instead of conventional medicine, with the intention of treating or curing a health condition. The NCCAM says that use of treatments in this way can be called alternative medicine. There can be overlap between these two categories. For example, aromatherapy may sometimes be used as a complementary treatment, and in other circumstances is used as an alternative treatment. A number of complementary and alternative treatments are typically used with the intention of treating or curing a health condition. Examples include: homeopathy, acupuncture, osteopathy, chiropractic, herbalism."[10] --Qexigator (talk) 10:49, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

For the lead / or Regional definitions

The following is a version of the two items quoted above, condensed for adding into the third paragraph of the lead (subject to comments others' may have):

Public information websites maintained by the governments of the USA and of the UK make a distinction between "alternative medicine" and "complementary medicine", but mention that these two can overlap. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) (a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) states that "alternative medicine" refers to using a non-mainstream approach in place of conventional medicine and that "complementary medicine" generally refers to using a non-mainstream approach together with conventional medicine, and comments that the boundaries between complementary and conventional medicine overlap and change with time.[1] The National Health Service (England)'s NHS Choices (owned by the Department of Health) states that when a treatment is used alongside conventional treatments, to help a patient cope with a health condition, and not as an alternative to conventional treatment, this use of treatments can be called "complementary medicine"; but when a treatment is used instead of conventional medicine, with the intention of treating or curing a health condition, the use can be called "alternative medicine".[2]

Qexigator (talk) 11:53, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

+Please note putting the above in the lead would not dilute the accuracy of the present version, nor the earlier version quoted in "Two/three points waiting resolution"[11]. --Qexigator (talk) 12:16, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Defining these terms as they are used in the broader topic area of irregular medical practices is an excellent idea as long as we are clear that they all refer to basically the same set of practices and that the definitions are somewhat elastic. I am not sure that this is not too much detail for the lead; a reader should be able to assume that we are basing any simple definition on the best available sources (and editors should challenge and fix any text that does not live up to this standard). In the past, the lead for this article has shown a tendency to balloon into its own mini-article, but so long as other editors agree I would support including a separation of terms along these lines or similar to the text currently in the article and including this improved sourcing. We should not refer to statements from the NCCAM as being from the full NIH, though; they are the most relevant center to cite here, and interested readers should be directed to the NCCAM article for more information. - 2/0 (cont.) 14:50, 11 September 2013 (UTC)
Yes, that's pretty much as I see it: all refer to basically the same set of practices (but some are western and modern, 18c. +, some not) - definitions elastic (due to variable use of terminology: exact, fuzzy, depending on context and purpose) - reader should be able to assume that we are basing any simple definition on best available sources (but also as determined under the governing law applicable in a given (named) polity such as USA or UK) - separation of terms along these lines or similar to the text currently in the article and including this improved sourcing. Not sure how to deal with your comment about NCCAM. In this particular context, need to bring out NCCAM is an extension of the responsible government for that country (USA). Interesting that NCCAM terminology has been adopted for England. Well, the time is now, not 1970's or 2002 in the article's early days. Qexigator (talk) 16:00, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

On further consideration, it may be better to keep the lead short and add the proposed paragraph to Regional definitions. Qexigator (talk) 21:02, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Now done. Qexigator (talk) 21:39, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Adequacy of current lead

Can any of the citations in the lead now be dropped? Editors are aware that normally the lead should be able to omit citations if it is summarising content which is sourced in the body. But in this article's lead, multiple citations have been inserted and retained over time to avert disputes. Some of the comments (above and below) in the course of the ongoing discussion seem to show unease about the present version of the lead, especially the wording "Alternative medicine is...not based on evidence gathered using the scientific method... (and) not typically included in the degree courses of established medical schools or used in conventional medicine". But it can be seen that this wording is suitable as a lead summary for the examples in the lead itself, and in 3 "Examples and classes", and in 6.1 "Prevalence of use of specific therapies", and it is also consistent with the article as a whole and in particular 1.1 "Terms and definitions" except alternative medicine is taught in more than 50 per cent of US medical schools + 2 "History - 19th century onwards" (... Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine... opened in 1893 and was the first medical school devoted to teaching "German scientific medicine... the 1910 Flexner Report called upon American medical schools to follow the model set by the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and adhere to mainstream science in their teaching and research. ...etc.....) + 2.1 "Medical education since 1910" + 2.2 "Proponents and opponents" (Alternative medicine practices and beliefs are diverse in their foundations and methodologies, and typically make use of preparations and dosages other than such as are included in the Pharmacopeia recognised by established medical schools.). Qexigator (talk) 09:36, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Lead now tweaked from "is not" to "have not been" to cover 1.1 "Terms and definitions" except 'alternative medicine is taught in more than 50 per cent of US medical schools' . Qexigator (talk) 05:47, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Update "...Social and Judgmental Biases ..."

This link appears to be broken: "Beyerstein BL (1999). "Psychology and 'Alternative Medicine' Social and Judgmental Biases That Make Inert Treatments Seem to Work". The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine 3(2). Retrieved 2008-07-07." If it cannot be repaired, should it be cited? Qexigator (talk) 09:35, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

It doesn't appear to be supporting anything particularly important, perhaps we should just wipe it. Can anyone speak to the quality of the journal? TippyGoomba (talk) 04:59, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
Can't speak to the quality of the journal, though I'll note that Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine ceased publication in 2007—which may make it slightly more difficult to track down, and probably means their website is receiving (at most) limited maintenance. Please bear in mind that merely being inaccessible online isn't be a reason to delete citations or content; we should be wary of FUTON bias in our citations (see also WP:DEADREF, WP:LINKROT).
I've reverted Qexigator's edit that purported to remove the above Beyerstein paper, as it appears to have – I hope inadvertently – slashed out a good bit of other material that seems to be supported by other citations as well. Further, two days isn't a sufficient period of time to allow for a resource to be verified (and new links potentially located). TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:04, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
And with very little poking around, the fulltext remains readily available in the Wayback Machine: [12]. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 13:15, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Well, after seeing revert (correct) did this [13] and now see per above the source may be found elsewhere, so, if the text is retained what should be the citation and link? Qexigator (talk) 14:51, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Again, we don't delete a reference just because the online link died: WP:LINKROT, WP:DEADREF. I've reverted your edit. The problem of the broken link can be fixed using WP:WAYBACK; I gave you the URL above.
It looks like the citation was being heavily used in the article (six separate locations?); removing it (and all of the related text that it supported) is a pretty major change, and it isn't justified by link rot alone. If the source itself is problematic – that is, not sufficiently reliable, or being given undue weight, or paper withdrawn, etc. – then removal (or trimming) of content related to it should be considered, along with a search for alternative, better-quality sources. I take no position on that point, but I reiterate and emphasize that that is a separate issue from the original link breaking, and one that you should discuss before making major content changes to the article. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 15:20, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

It might be more helpful for improving the article if editors would follow the discussion more attentively instead of being overly hasty with the revert button. I take no position. If TenOfAllTrades had an active link, how has the article been improved by reverting instead of using it to replace the dead?[14] Qexigator (talk) 15:35, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

I have added a link to archive.org, like WP:WAYBACK says. You just:
  • go to www.archive.org,
  • put the URL on the form and click "Take me back",
  • click on several dates until you find one that works,
  • add "archiveurl=" and "archivedate=" to the reference.
Next time you find a dead link, follow these steps or label it with {{dead link}}. Please do not remove a link just because it's dead. Sometimes a server breaks for a few minutes or hours. It will look dead to you but it's still alive. --Enric Naval (talk) 17:01, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks Enric, that's more like it. Qexigator (talk) 17:40, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Dawkins - wonder

The publication of An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist is an occasion to reconsider why its author, Richard Dawkins, has been quoted in this article. His academic speciality was experimental biology, not the practice of any kind of medicine or research into health, evidence based or any other. A comment at Talk:Richard Dawkins has mentioned that he doesn't consider himself a philosopher: "Well, I am not a philosopher, and that’ll be obvious. Perhaps you should have invited a philosopher…".[15] and [16] --Qexigator (talk) 15:42, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

You mention three things, his biography without context, his academic specially, and the fact he doesn't consider himself a philosopher. I don't see how any of these have any bearing on whether or not we quote him in this article. He is famous for his academic work as well as his work on writing popular atheism, science and skepticism. Whether his popular writing on skepticism which includes a critique of "alternative medicine" warrants his inclusion in this article is an interesting question, but not the one you raised. TippyGoomba (talk) 04:52, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
He's a notable skeptic who understands the scientific method and anything that deviates from it. He associates with other skeptics, many of whom are active in medical fields, so he also gets more knowledge of the issues through them and their writings. His opinions on these matters is highly respected and everyone takes notice of them, especially when he is so eloquent in summing up the issues at stake, as he does in the quotes chosen for this article. He sums up the skeptical position very well. A person doesn't have to be in the medical field to understand and state these issues clearly, especially since they thus reveal that they understand them better than most alternative medicine promoters and practitioners who fail to understand the scientific method, and their own deviation from it. It takes a skeptic's mind using critical thinking to see that. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:11, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
Agreed Dawkins can be seen as representing the point of view which he represents: "He sums up the skeptical position very well." If that is good and sufficient reason for quoting him (subject to Tippy's comment), the article would be improved by mentioning it, thus (should it be 'c' for Brtish English or 'k' for Skepticism?):
  • Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, has summed up the sceptical position when remarking of alternative medicine that it is a "set of practices that cannot be tested, refuse to be tested, or consistently fail tests."[156]; and that "there is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work."[157] He has argued that, if a technique is demonstrated effective in properly performed trials, it ceases to be alternative and simply becomes medicine.[158]"
And, it would make sense to retain Dawkins under "Other critics (UK)", in view of the quote from Relman under "Criticism - In USA". Qexigator (talk) 07:34, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
British English, sceptic not skeptic - and I think the Dawkins quote, or variations of it, should be all that we should have in the lede. I know that it wont happen, but I long for somebody to be bold. Of more concern is that the article has to reflect the 'creeping endarkenment' that all this brings with it. Integrative medicine depts opening in major hospitals and medical facilities across the world brings a gloss of respectability that Alt Med doesn't deserve. Gorski or somebody like him needs to publish rather than blog. Then it would be easier to use better sources. --Roxy the dog (patronize me) 12:14, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
Brang.'s comment shows that the quotes from Dawkins, as a prominent and outspoken controversialist, have a place as part of this article, which is offering a survey and report about Alternative medicine as defined in the lead, and as it is found generally in the USA and elsewhere. The quotes encapsulate most opponents' points of view, but numerous other writers, such as Beyerstein, are cited throughout the article for their particular research information rather than for their standing in the field of the theory of knowledge. Qexigator (talk) 13:27, 17 September 2013 (UTC)
I'm confused as to what issue you are attempting to identify or what change you are suggesting. Could you please clarify? TippyGoomba (talk) 01:14, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
Sorry about confusion. No change to text or sources except as at bullet above (+ smoothing tweak), thus:
  • Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist, has defined alternative medicine as summed up the sceptical position when remarking that alternative medicine is a "set of practices that cannot be tested, refuse to be tested, or consistently fail tests." He has also stated that ; and that..... " there is no alternative medicine....... Qexigator (talk) 07:22, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
Looking at this again, perhaps the same thing could be put better for ease of reading thus:
  • The sceptical position has been summed up by an evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, who has remarked that alternative medicine is a "set of practices that cannot be tested, refuse to be tested, or consistently fail tests"; and that..... " there is no alternative medicine....... Qexigator (talk) 07:22, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Now done. Qexigator (talk) 21:16, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

I appreciate the effort, Qex, but I'm not thrilled by the phrase "The sceptical position..." (Ignoring that you spelled "skeptical" incorrectly!) this phrase implies skepticism is some sort of abstract philosophy or something. Skeptics are just people who reject scientific claims made without supporting scientific evidence. "The skeptic position" is that the earth revolves around the sun; yet, we wouldn't use this phrase in the Earth article. I don't see why it belong here, either. Dawkins is a prominent scientist, so his statement fits neatly in this article. The fact that he applies scientific reasoning to other walks of life just seems like extraneous information, here. JoelWhy?(talk)
And I appreciate the comment, but have you seen how this edit was arrived at, prompted by Brangifer's comment above? I was in two minds whether to put sceptic or sceptical. But otherwise what's the problem? Surprising as it may seem, it would be unreasonable to compose an encyclopedic article about Alternative medicine on the unquestionable assumption that readers would necessarily know about, or would acknowlege, Dawkins's standing and reputation generally or in connection with this particular topic, without a few words in the text pointing in the direction mentioned by Brangifer. How can such words be superfluous or contentious? I don't know how much further this needs debating, but since you have taken the trouble to comment I will add something more. First, can I assume you are aware (to put it briefly) that "Philosophical skepticism is an overall approach that requires all information to be well supported by evidence" and that the term Scientific skepticism "appears to have originated in the work of Carl Sagan"? In the Scientific skepticism article Dawkins is mentioned as considering creationism a threat to biology. Such opinions are normally considered citable only when made by persons such as Sagan and Dawkins who have been acknowledged as having some eminence in one of the branches of the great umbrella tree "science". But it is the case that not all who know of and apply scientific reasoning agree in all respects with Dawkins (or Sagan). In other words, he is not universally regarded as having the only opinion on the subject which is worthy of attention. But it can be generally acknowledged that he claims to be, and is regarded as, adhering to the point of view currently quite widely held which is known as Scientific skepticism; and that he is esteemed as having become, and presently is, one of its leading exponents - see: Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science, Project Reason, Science, The Skeptics Society. --Qexigator (talk) 23:03, 18 September 2013 (UTC)
I don't see a problem with the previous version. TippyGoomba (talk) 02:51, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
Tippy: that revert[17] was not very helpful for improving the article, unlike others such as[18] or other edits such as[19] and[20]. Open up a bit. Maybe we do not always see a problem when the difference between ways of expressing something is not polarised between aggressive/defensive opponents, and especially when unwilling to shift a little to see (not necessarily accept) the range of points of view among readers who are broadly agreed, but who cannot be expected or required to be entirely homogeneous in having an identical range of ready made information or assumptions. We could also be aware that it can be interesting to try that (shifting a little) now and again. For example, the use of the inset pictures: for / against / don't see a problem with / don't see a problem without / don't know / don't care / against on principle / must have / OK, but for different reasons / prefer other pics or captions ... etc. Is it not a wee bit inconsistent and irrational to adopt a position against Alternative medicine as in some sense "unscientific", while at the same time treating one of its opponents as if having guru status? That would seem POV-ish. Cheers! Qexigator (talk) 07:48, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
You give some random unrelated edits and make a generic plea for compromise. The only statement you made that seems potentially related to the discussion at hand is a rhetorical question with a question mark. But I still cannot gleam your objection to the content. Concision is a virtue. TippyGoomba (talk) 03:48, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
The "unrelated edits" were not random: they were to point out, by contrast, what was unhelpful in yours. One example was correcting an error (on my part), the other two were practical improvements. Yours was merely negative. Also unhelpful is merely to say "I do not see the problem" without bothering with the rationale: it is unreasonable to compose an encyclopedic article about Alternative medicine on the unquestionable assumption that readers necessarily know about, or acknowlege, Dawkins's standing and reputation generally or in connection with this particular topic - the few words added in the text by my edit were to point in the direction mentioned by Brangifer, in accordance with the structure and flow of the article and its overall content. Qexigator (talk) 18:59, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
Was this what Brangifer was suggesting? I doubt it. Perhaps he'd like to comment. TippyGoomba (talk) 02:29, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, but I'm too busy elsewhere to think about this right now, but is there really a problem with that edit? Not sure right now, so you guys all work it out together. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:37, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
Appeal recused? or suspended awhile? Qexigator (talk) 07:03, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

List "Examples and classes" alphabetically?

Would it be acceptable to arrange section 3 alphabetcally, which would make better sense as seen in the Contents list? The listing is too short to classify, and classifying is liable to violation of SYN or other objection or dispute. In the current version section three is arranged in no apparent order thus:

3.1 Ayurvedic medicine
3.2 Traditional Chinese medicine
3.3 Homeopathy
3.4 Naturopathy
3.5 Energy therapies
3.5.1 Biofields
3.5.2 Electromagnetic fields
3.6 Mind body therapies
3.7 Herbs, diet and vitamins
3.8 Body manipulation.

Alphabetically that would be:

3.1 Ayurvedic medicine
3.2 Body manipulation
3.3 Energy therapies
3.3.1 Biofields
3.3.2 Electromagnetic fields
3.4 Herbs, diet and vitamins
3.5 Homeopathy
3.6 Mind body therapies
3.7 Naturopathy
3.8 Traditional Chinese medicine.

Qexigator (talk) 11:32, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Now done, but should inset pics be moved to a gallery at end of article (if so, please do) or removed altogether as impeding text edits? Why are they there anyway? Qexigator (talk) 07:57, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

This is a very good list of topics/subtopics within this field. May I use them in our WikiProject for Mind-Body? You may wish to join us there - we are looking for people with knowledge in different aspects of this field. CJ (talk) 23:18, 8 October 2013 (UTC)


Inset pics

Would not the better place for these be on the page specific to each? - >most of them are? Captions read:

1 .Vials displayed in a glass case at a homeopathic pharmacy in Varanasi, India

2. A botánica of traditional Hispanic medicines >(Botánicas such as this one in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts cater to the Latino community and sell folk medicine alongside statues of Catholic saints, candles decorated with prayers, lucky bamboo, and other items.)

3. Indian Dhanvantari, an incarnation of Krishnaand the Lord of Ayurveda worshiped at an ayurveda expo, Bangalore >(An idol of Dhanvantari at an Ayurveda Expo in Bangalore)

4. In Japanese Reiki, it is believed that supernatural energies flow from the palms of the healer into the patient near Chakras, influencing disease.>(The seven major chakras used within many Western systems of reiki)

5. In acupuncture it is believed that insertion and manipulation of needles affects the flow of qi, or "life energy" >(Needles being inserted into a patient's skin)

6.Chiropractic was developed in the US in the belief that manipulation of the spine affects a supernatural vital energy that influences health and disease

7. Christian priest Faith healer laying hands on sick girl in belief in divine healing.Religion based healing practices, such as use of prayer and the laying of hands in Christian faith healing, rely on belief in divine intervention for healing

8. Studies show that prayer is a common "complementary" practice, in the belief it might increase the efficacy of science based medicine. >(Shakta Hindus in Dhaka, Bangladesh, pray to the goddess during Durga Puja, October 2003.) Qexigator (talk) 11:11, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Clearer on Integrative Medicine

I'm trying to provide more clarification on Integrative Medicine. This term is used much more broadly than the article would suggest; it seems to limit the use of this term to a few proponents of the Integrative Medicine approach. But almost every major medical school now has a department of Integrative Medicine. Wouldn't that indicate a change in the use of the term? I'm a newbie, and am not really sure how to go about clarifying this, but I made an attempt. Any helpful suggestions would be welcome. CJ (talk) 23:26, 8 October 2013 (UTC)

I have reverted your changes. Do you have any evidence to show that almost every major medical school now has a department of Integrative Medicine? --Roxy the dog (quack quack) 04:09, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
Isn't such a "clarification" (if properly sourced) better placed at Integrative medicine, covered here by link (or merger, if that happens)? Qexigator (talk) 07:41, 9 October 2013 (UTC)
I moved this section out of being a subsection of previous discussion. - - MrBill3 (talk) 08:35, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

CAM for Arthritis: Is There a Role? Medscape discussion

While this can't be used as a MEDRS, it is an interesting discussion and worth reading. It is an email debate between two rheumatologists, and stretches across six sections. Everyone can read it. Just register:

CAM for Arthritis: Is There a Role?
"Medscape recently asked rheumatologists Nathan Wei, MD, and Jonathan Kay, MD, to participate in the following email debate exploring what CAM data do exist and addressing the role of alternative treatments in the management of arthritic conditions."
  1. Your Patient's Taking What?
  2. When Is a CAM No Longer a CAM?
  3. Primrose, Thunder God Vine, and Side Effect Concerns
  4. Your Neighborhood Witch Doctor
  5. The Ethics of Placebo
  6. RCTs, Laughter, and a Need for "Sham Prayer"?

It's interesting to see how differing the thoughts can be between two physicians, one who obviously favors CAM, and the other who favors more strict evidence. -- Brangifer (talk) 16:32, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

Reference formatting

I propose to try formatting the references in a uniform manner, using templates where appropriate. I am suggesting for author, Lastname, I.I. (initials only for first names, no space between initials) and displayauthor=1 (first author followed by et al.). Dates in numeric form (2013-09-19). For journals I propose full name of journal. Regarding PMID, PMC, DOI; if PMC is available I will use that and it will create link for article title, if PMC is not available both PMID and DOI. Journal names wikilinked for first instance in reflist. Removal of accessdate for journal articles. Year only for journal articles. Retention of accessdate and archive of webpages on or shortly after accessdate. ISBN's for books and Google Books links to cited pages when possible/workable. For bibliography citations if possible the page numbers linked to Google Books. For multiple references in one footnote line breaks between. For agencies parent agency listing on first instance in reflist only, initials provided on first instance then used thereafter. Suggestions appreciated. Looking for some consensus or lack of objection. I intend to boldly proceed, but am happy to modify what I do to reflect consensus or appropriate suggestions. - - MrBill3 (talk) 16:53, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is going to object to you making all the citations uniform. If you've got the time/inclination, go for it! No need to wait for consent for something so innocuous. JoelWhy?(talk)
Yes, as a reader, good referencing is welcome. But not all newer editors will be equal to the template which is fairly complex for the less skilled, and there is likely to be a need for some clean up from time to time. Is there an auto correction? I found when recently changing the sequence of subsections in Examples, the insets which had been placed adjacent to the relevant text had not moved with the text, leaving blank gaps, but when I looked again the blanks had gone, with no trace that I could see of editing intervention. Qexigator (talk) 17:26, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
I was mostly talking about formatting the existing references. However once a citation style is established for an article editors adding to it should attempt to follow it. I realize this doesn't always happen and of course occasional cleanups are required. With newer editors, on assumes good faith and hopes for the best. I am not aware of any autocorrect that executes the function you were describing, perhaps you were using visual editor? or the page was fully updated in your browser (purged). There is citation bot and a couple gadgets templates that facilitate using templates and there are some autofill templates. As much as I like the references thorough and consistent as long as the source is identified well enough to locate it for verification that's what counts. - - MrBill3 (talk) 10:50, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
I think we do not currently have a strongly preferred style for this article that would interfere with any of these changes and it looks like nothing here contradicts WP:MEDMOS. The |accessdate= proposal in particular describes best practices. There might be a global community consensus elsewhere on using convenience links to a commercial product like Google Books, but I do not remember offhand if that discussion ever resolved. If you feel like doing even more work, I prefer using the |refs= parameter to place the actual text defining the reference in the #References section; this simplifies some maintenance tasks and is intuitive when creating a whole document, but defining the references inline also has its points. - 2/0 (cont.) 19:07, 19 September 2013 (UTC)
I use Google Books links only to page numbers where text is available. The isbn provides a wl to Special:Booksources where this is a link out to Google Books. I don't know how the discussion you mentioned played out but IMO a link to Google Books is not appropriate unless the text is available for verification purposes and then as mentioned as a link on the page number. - - MrBill3 (talk) 03:47, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
I didn't see a clear or consistent style and I thought proposing a thorough yet concise style better than looking back and identifying the style used by the creator of the article. I think the style I proposed is consistent with the autofill templates for journal articles. I was really just fulfilling the letter of WP:CITEVAR before editing boldly on a clearly contentious article. I appreciate your suggestion and will proceed with the |refs parameter. Thanks for the input. - - MrBill3 (talk) 10:50, 21 September 2013 (UTC)
Fine with me. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:43, 20 September 2013 (UTC)
As a general rule, wp:MEDREF cites are easiest generated using user:Diberri's tools and maintained using user:Citation bot, but there are quite a number of other semi- or fully-automatic tools to help at Help:Citation_tools. It's worth getting to know them, particularly if you plan to do a lot of citation cleanup work. The only thing I'm finding jarring in the above is the excessive capitalization of book titles, but that may be just me. LeadSongDog come howl! 21:07, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Not sure what you mean by excessive capitalization of book titles. Each word is capitalized per MOS. I have not finished going through the references so you may be referring to something I haven't worked on yet. I am aware of the automated tools and they are nice for most refs, for this article I wanted to try and get as much concision as possible (first author only, initials with periods but no spaces) but also as clear a possible (full names of journals). Many of the automated tools introduce variations and are not available to me at times. Thanks for the pointers though. Any suggestions on the references as I go along is appreciated. - - MrBill3 (talk) 04:41, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
Well, the approach you're using is per MOS:CT, while my pref runs to Citing medicine. LeadSongDog come howl! 08:00, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
I think we can agree that WP:MOS is appropriate for WP articles. Thanks for pointing me to the NIH citing medicine site, it's a great resource. - - MrBill3 (talk) 05:54, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Relman quote

The Relman quote [t]here really is no such thing as alternative medicine--only medicine that has been proven to work and medicine that has not came in at 24 Feb 2011[21] and has been carried forward ever since with the same ref to The New England Journal of Medicine, July 1995. But the July index pages do not show where the quote comes from. Can it be traced? Qexigator (talk) 17:58, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

I looked through the NEJM back catalog on the web and couldn't find anything that would seem to contain it. This seems like a misattribution (with minor change of phrasing) of the quote from Fontanarosa that already appears in the article in a quote box here. Good catch, I think it should go or be properly quoted and attributed. A little research might be in order as the statement has been made in various forms for example Paul Offit: Offit on SciFri (his book quote mentioned in interview on NPR's Science Friday) and Offit on On Point (same on other NPR show). - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:24, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
Similar comment Alternative Medicine — The Risks of Untested and Unregulated Remedies by Marcia Angell and Jerome P. Kassirer in NEJM 1998; 339:839-841. - -MrBill3 (talk) 19:36, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
Article in Economist There is no alternative 2011-05-19. - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:41, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
In the History section there is a similar Relman quote: Arnold S. Relman, remarked in 1998 that in the best kind of medical practice, all proposed treatments must be tested objectively, and that in the end there will only be treatments that pass and those that do not, those that are proven worthwhile and those that are not. He asked 'Can there be any reasonable "alternative"?'(NEJM, 1998)[70] Perhaps the second should be omitted, if its citation cannot be traced. Qexigator (talk) 19:52, 24 September 2013 (UTC)
The quote is very similar to:

There are not two kinds of medicine, one conventional and the other unconventional, that can be practiced jointly in a new kind of “integrative medicine.” Nor, as Andrew Weil and his friends also would have us believe, are there two kinds of thinking, or two ways to find out which treatments work and which do not. In the best kind of medical practice, all proposed treatments must be tested objectively. In the end, there will only be treatments that pass that test and those that do not, those that are proven worthwhile and those that are not. Can there be any reasonable “alternative”?

— Arnold S. Relman, "A Trip to Stonesville: Andrew Weil, the Boom in Alternative Medicine, and the Retreat from Science" CBE Views 1999 22(4):121-3
The full article makes clear that it is condensed from an earlier publication, but that part is an attributed direct quotation. LeadSongDog come howl! 14:13, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
I think that confirms that the second Relman mention was only a repetition of the first which is also sourced to A Trip to Stonesville. But the NEJM ref seems more than doubtful if the article cannot be found in the index for July 1995. Qexigator (talk) 20:08, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
I agree that the removal of improperly quoted or referenced quotes is very important. I do think that a concise statement similar to the questionable Relman one belongs in the first paragraph of the criticism section. If an editor can find such a statement and paraphrase or quote it for the beginning of this section I think it would improve the article and the impact and clarity of that section. As I go through the references I will see if I find anything and post it here as a suggestion. What about the Offit material I posted above. The notability is supported and the statement, "there is no such thing..." is present both in the Offit's book and the two interviews I provided. As an editor I generally work on references so if someone who writes content could look into it... - - MrBill3 (talk) 18:40, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
On whether citing Relman here, a second time in the article, would improve the first paragraph of this section is 50--50: when I first read it there it seemed right, but when I now see it omitted that seems slightly better. I daresay if it comes back properly referenced, that would be acceptable. But I certainly see Relman as a better source, than Offit or the Economist. Angeli and Kassirer would suffice but the link you gave does not so far as I can see support the text. Qexigator (talk) 07:02, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion. It was just a suggestion. I think if the section seems strong and clear enough without it fine, this article is certainly large enough that anything to keep it as concise as possible is a step in the right direction. - - MrBill3 (talk) 08:51, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Citation problem in "Other critics (UK)"

There is a need to rectify one of the citations in the above section:

Richard Dawkins... has also stated that "there is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work."[152].

The citation is "Dawkins 2003, p. 58" which appears to be citing [151]: "Dawkins, R. (2003). Menon, L., ed. A Devil's Chaplain: Selected Essays. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson." But p.58 is on another topic altogether, while the book's Index for 'Alternative'medicine gives only 41, 42, 192, 209-215. The quoted words appear on p.42 (in chapter 1.4) but are there shown as Dawkins quoting a newspaper article by the journalist John Diamond. Pages 209-215 of the book comprise chapter 4.4 'Snake Oil: Foreword to the posthumous book Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations by John Diamond' (104: John Diamond, Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations London, Vintage, 2001). The article's "Further reading" list includes Dawkins, R. (2001). "Foreword". In Diamond, J. Snake Oil and Other Preoccupations. London: Vintage.... Reprinted in Dawkins 2003. The text could be corrected to read:

"Another essay in the same book quoted from an article by John Diamond (journalist) in The Independent: "There is really no such thing as alternative medicine, just medicine that works and medicine that doesn't."

But then how should the citations be correctly made? Qexigator (talk) 16:03, 26 September 2013 (UTC)

Comparing ISBN 9780297829737 vice ISBN 9780618335404 and ISBN 9780753817506 all show as London : Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003 but there are two different paginations (320pp vice 264pp). This might be part of the problem.LeadSongDog come howl! 17:41, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
Yes, perhaps better not mention a page number, but identify by the chapter. Qexigator (talk) 20:08, 26 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for finding this problem. I have fixed the references with page numbers and links to the specified pages. I think page numbers are important for direct quotes especially in controversial articles. I used the 2004 edition, specifying the isbn that appears on the title page of that edition. I removed the mention of the chapters as the specific pages are now referenced and linked. MrBill3 (talk) 18:19, 27 September 2013 (UTC)
Something is amiss. They are in different chapters as mentioned above, but both are now linked to p.36. This is correct for the Diamond quote in that edition, but not for the first link to the same book, which should be to a page of chapter 4.4 which begins on p.179, but the page for citation is on a following p.180/181 which is not shown at the linked site. Maybe the link can be fixed in this respect. Meantime, reference to the chapter number will be valid for any edition, whether print copy or ebook (including a 2004 paperback published by Phoenix (Orion Books) London with the cover as in the infobox at 'A Devil's Chaplain'. Also the first year of publication was 2003, Great Britain, Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Is it possible to fix the link to that edition? Qexigator (talk) 16:24, 29 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for staying on this until I get it right. I have fixed the page numbers and the links are set to a preview of each quote/citation from within the same edition. I have also wikilinked the book title to it's article. I don't think the original publication date and chapter numbers are relevant to the article so I would suggest removing them now that a link to the exact page is provided. The purpose of the reference is verification of where it was read for citation in this article. That said if I had my preferences I would reference the first edition, but I can't link to the material quoted on that and the links I do have provide immediate and clear verification, the priority for a reference. Again thanks for the collaboration. - - MrBill3 (talk) 04:29, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
Generally, the date of first publication is always relevant, and in this case the place of publication, (UK), is relevant, whether or not the publication in USA the next year is also cited. The first date shows sequence in relation to other publications on the topic. If the method you are using to bring orderly uniformity into the citations is not able to accomodate this sort of thing, perhaps some exceptions to the method may be necessary. Is that feasible? Such information should not be lost when it is available. Meantime, we had better go back to status quo (including wikilink which is also pertinent). Qexigator (talk) 07:02, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Good point, I hadn't thought of it that way. I set the references to remain to the first publication and included a parenthetical remark (with link to pages, date and country of edition and isbn). Let me know if you think this works. Thank you for pointing out the relevance of when and where originally published and taking the time to keep working on this, your diplomacy is also appreciated. In response any time a ref requires it can and should vary. - - MrBill3 (talk) 08:43, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that seems to have fixed it - nicely done, a fairly complex set of refs. Qexigator (talk) 08:53, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
Thanks, I am about one quarter of the way through the 200 refs for the article. - - MrBill3 (talk) 10:03, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Suggestions

Barrett, S. (2003-06-29). "Analysis of the Reports of the New Zealand Ministerial Advisory Committee on Complementary and Alternative Health (MACCAH)". Quackwatch.

I have added the failed verification tag to the above fact in the article. - - MrBill3 (talk) 03:35, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the "adoption" of the OAM definition by the UK Dept of Health, I think I wrote that section but I agree with your criticism. Adoption entails endorsement and there's no evidence of that. However, they, and others, have frequently used or cited the definition - without positive or negative commentary - as part of their introduction of the field in explanatory documents/webpages. I guess the options are to either excise that part of the sentence or to reword (e.g. "This definition has been widely adopted by CAM researchers,[36] used by government bodies such as the UK Department of Health". Not sure I'd be happy with that either. The purpose of the paragraph was merely to indicate the relative ubiquity of that definition and its widespread use to orientate many different readerships but this differs from the suggestion that the UK Dept of Health or other such bodies think that this is the only viable or best definition of CAM.
Also, I have to apologise for the paragraph which follows the one referenced above which, I think, I also wrote. It is totally lacking in clarity and should be rewritten. FiachraByrne (talk) 13:07, 27 November 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your contributions FiachraByrne. Perhaps instead of "used" we could substitute "referred to". I encourage you to edit the following paragraph that you refer to, improving WP is what we're here for ;). - - MrBill3 (talk) 10:45, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
My preference would be for "cited by" over "referred to" but the sentence might benefit if the clause was excised altogether (the construction is awkward). Meh on editing the following paragraph - but it does need to be done. Perhaps I'll do it. LOL @ your attribution of motivation for most WP contributors. Attention-seeking is often more plausible ... FiachraByrne (talk) 12:24, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
Changed it to "cited by" instead of "referred to" which matches my own preference but has not been determined by consensus. Also removed "failed verification" tag. Feel free to revert if you have any objections. FiachraByrne (talk) 12:33, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
Re Walton's report - it's pretty explicit that the academic community has failed to come up with a satisfactory definition and thus - beyond stating that CAM refers "a diverse group of health-related therapies and disciplines which are not considered to be a part of mainstream medical care" (i.e. same as NCCAM essentially) - explicitly eschews adopting anything beyond an operational definition of CAM (where individual therapies are simply listed as CAM or not CAM). Cochrane have adopted a similar approach. FiachraByrne (talk) 12:45, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
  • Inflation by Conflation

Steven Novella has pointed out that the figures for the use of CAM are inflated by the co-opting ("steal") of aspects of science based medicine for example nutrition. He also criticizes how academic centers (the Mayo Clinic in particular) provide information on CAM in sourcing their information from CAM proponents resulting in the endorsement of "CAM propaganda and shameless promotion" by academic institutions. In evaluating the Mayo Clinics consumer health web page on CAM he finds it a complete failure at providing "useful information to health consumers to help them understand CAM and make informed decisions – important decisions for their own health." He calls NCCAM the "king of quackedemia" after providing a definition for the term.

Novella, S. (2013-09-24). "Misinformation from Mayo Clinic". Neurologica blog.
Novella, S. (2008-09-10). "National Health Interview Survey 2007 – CAM Use by Adults". Science Based Medicine blog.

- - 18:21, 27 September 2013 (UTC) MrBill3 (talk) 18:24, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

On above "Suggestions":
  • I have not been able to see in the referencing how MACCAH comes into the text or notes. It seems to have been stranded in the course of earlier edits, and may be it should be removed.
  • As I read it, the text there (with notes and quotes), about definition of CAM, is tracing the way in which the term came into use, so far as this can be seen in citable sources, and like most other terms, such as "science" or "chemistry" or "physics", this is seldom as clearcut as may seem later when a particular usage has firmed up.
  • Novella's critique: The article already has sufficient adverse comment about CAM, without resorting to such bloggery. Qexigator (talk) 07:39, 1 October 2013 (UTC)
The MACCAH is not discussed in the text. I think it should be removed as the fact it supports is non controversial (that the OAM was part of NIH).
I was not looking at Novella's critique in terms of adverse comment about CAM but in regards to the studies of prevalence with defitions and distinctions being vague how can a study be clear. Also in terms of how CAM is presented by academic institutions. These two issues are not adverse comment about CAM but are relevant to subjects covered in the article. As I have said I think this article is plenty long and any additions should be based on a clear value. - - MrBill3 (talk) 03:42, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
Novella's link to 2007 Statistics on CAM Use in the United States, National Health Interview Survey[22] could be citable in a siutable part of the article, perhaps as an addition to "Prevalence of use, In US" or to "Prevalence of use of specific therapies": "According to a nationwide government survey released in December 2008, approximately 38 percent of U.S. adults aged 18 years and over and approximately 12 percent of children use some form of CAM.", based on National Health Statistics Report no. 12, 10 December 2008[23] Novella's blog comment about Mayo Clinic is by way of being polemic in the USA, by a private individual straying into another topic area, whether or not fair comment. Qexigator (talk) 08:14, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

New input

The newish (2012) refs I have added for NHRMC in two places will need your treatment. I am not expecting to be making other additions just now, but others may have more to add about Australia or other countries sooner or later. Qexigator (talk) 17:25, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the addition and the replacement of the Commonwealth with explanation. This article can definitely use international scope. I hope you or others have more to add soon. - - MrBill3 (talk) 03:44, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

Please see message about ticking "m" at yout Talk page. Qexigator (talk) 07:55, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Reference removed

I removed a link in the reference of the Healing, Hype or Harm?... book to a review of the book. It does not contain the facts cited (the book itself does). The link is Review by Purdy, K. of Healing, Hype or Harm?. I am now most of the way through the references. - - MrBill3 (talk) 03:41, 26 November 2013 (UTC) Never mind this appears in the further reading section already. Not sure if it even belongs there (notable?). - - MrBill3 (talk) 09:06, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Done

I have finished formatting the references. - - MrBill3 (talk) 09:08, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

Definitions by type

To revive the discussion....

Would it be worth it to describe, using subheadings, various definitions according to type? We have definitions which describe altmed by its relation to mainstream medical practices. These are often from government and other organizations. Other definitions describe it in relation to its evidence base. These are often from scientific skeptics/promoters of EBM. Maybe there are other types of definitions. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:13, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Could be more SYN, arbitrary and fussy than actually helpfully informative, but what subheadings would you suggest? Qexigator (talk) 22:25, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
You're probably right. It would end up creating more heat than light. What we have is actually pretty good. -- Brangifer (talk) 22:47, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

Reddit discussion on Wikipedia: Alternative medicine article

I went on a Reddit thread (Wizardman AMA) trying to see if there were any specific issues with Wikipedia. One user stated that in this article: "Despite the fact that no major world health organization defines it the way they do, a small cabal of editors backed by admins who will ban opposing voices has kept the wrong definition on there for years. This is despite extensive research and near consensus on the talk pages there is no support for defining although med as "medicine no backed by the scientific method"."

Has there been a specific discussion on that "no major world health organization defines it the way" the article does, or is there something else that hasn't been brought into consideration? I am aware that there has been involvement from the Arbitration Committee.

There have been several. Search through the archives for WHO, NHS, NIH, and so forth. Various users on here have posted the definitions given by these organizations. None of which is the version used by Wikipedia. 2600:1012:B002:510C:AC09:BB3B:167E:1364 (talk) 08:06, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
There is an archive of talk pages. If you remember the names of the users, that would be great. I could search the talk page archives for "definition" and see what I can come up with. WhisperToMe (talk) 08:13, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm certain that mainstream science is mostly opposed to alternative medicine, but I would like to know if definitions from "major world health organization[s]" have been brought up before, and whether there can be a way of tweaking the definitions in this article. If the issue of definitions is something that is reoccurring there needs to be an FAQ in the talk page explaining why this certain definition is taken, so that editors wishing to discuss it can understand what ground the debate has taken.

I don't specialize in science-related articles, so forgive me if I get some nuances wrong. WhisperToMe (talk) 07:51, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Some of the previous discussions I found were in:
With the high volume of discussion content (it would take awhile to determine who said what and how it ended) we definitely need an FAQ that explains the previous discussions.
What would help is an explanation comparing the current definition to the organization definitions that states how the current definition is getting it all wrong.
WhisperToMe (talk) 08:16, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
The definition used by the US, UN, GB and other health organizations defines alternative medicine as an alternate approach to doing medicine as opposed to conventional medicine. The definition used on Wikipedia defines it solely by a lack of scientific support. They do not have a valid reference for this, AFAIK. They do cite one NIH paper, but that paper explicitly says they are inventing it just for that paper and not using the normal one. Also, the fact that alt med is, in fact, verified by science sometimes (as referenced further down in the article) means the definition isn't even consistent within the same page. 2600:1012:B002:510C:AC09:BB3B:167E:1364 (talk) 22:24, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
You will find various definitions from different organizations and groups, and because this is Wikipedia, we don't use only one definition. We might mention different ones, but we will likely also come up with our own per WP:LEAD, where the lead sums up article content. The complaint from Wizardman is one we often hear, because proponents of alternative medicine do not want to hear any type of definition that defines it in relation to its evidence base. They simply won't have it in the article, but NPOV requires it. Such definitions exist, and, per NPOV, we are required to also include them, so we end up mentioning several. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:44, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
The lead and this section (with subsections) are informative. -- Brangifer (talk) 09:09, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
Again (as in an earlier archived discussion), attention is called to the neutrality of the opening wording: "...any practice... not based on evidence gathered using the scientific method...(and) using alternative medical diagnoses". The wording expresses a principal distinguishing feature between AM and 20c. mainstream medicine, which is more fully explained in the Background and History sections, including Medical education since 1910. AM practises include "homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic, and acupuncture": these are based on theories or principles which are intentionally and professedly other than the aforesaid mainstream "scientific medicine". Qexigator (talk) 23:08, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
Using this as the definition is disingenuous, however, to the point of violating NOR, as you do not have a single reference that uses that definition, and are essentially inventing your own. The definition of alternative medicine has a strong consensus in the medical world, and it is not the definition Wikipedia uses. Wkerney (talk) 19:06, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
First, the research into the past discussions should have been done before starting a new one. Second, a careful reading of the article reveals a thorough discussion in a section clearly headed "Terms and definitions". Finally the definition given is neutral and provides the clear distinction appropriate for the article. Alt med might at some point(s) be "verified by science" however a distinguishing characteristic is that it is not "based" on such evidence. Alternative medicine is based on many different ideas but not on "evidence gathered using the scientific method" that would be conventional 20c medicine. - - MrBill3 (talk) 23:31, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
Articles with lengthy past discussions have FAQs and lay out the past discussions as part of the FAQ so a person unfamiliar with the topic can easily do the said research. A redditor voiced a complaint about this article, so I decided to investigate. While I found past discussions I was not a part of them so I cannot follow the flow of the said discussions as they are very, very lengthy. There needs to be an FAQ that explains how these decisions were made, and what the basis is of these decisions. WhisperToMe (talk) 01:00, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
I think a FAQ is a great idea (good luck composing it and getting consensus here). That would require going through the aforementioned very, very lengthy discussions to extract the decisions and their basis. I think I have presented a pretty basic explanation of why the currently used definition is appropriate (as have others here). The only other description of another definition "an alternate approach to doing medicine as opposed to conventional medicine" does not provide any real definition. Alternate approach means what? Alternate how? As opposed to conventional medicine in what way? As WhisperToMe stated earlier someone with an objection pointing to another definition should provide the other definition(s) and compare them with the one in use,identify a specific problem and propose something. - - MrBill3 (talk) 01:40, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
I was under the impression that we do include, or at least mention (which amounts to the same thing), other definitions.
What I find rather distressing/shocking, is that a comment by someone on Redditt would lead to this. The internet, and these talk pages, are already filled with the comments of disgruntled people. We don't take them seriously unless they have policy based concerns, AND their accusations were actually accurate, rather than irritation that their favorite POV or definition is not included. Many an editor who does not get their way does this elsewhere after failing to convince editors here. We definitely do not take them seriously, because they have already failed to make their case here. They should come here and seek to improve things.
Unless we have a concrete proposal for improvement, this thread is really not helping us get anywhere. Can we get such a proposal which will improve the article?
I have never opposed the inclusion of multiple notable definitions, just to demonstrate that no single definition covers all the bases. Our carefully and properly synthesized definitions, because they are based on multiple RS, end up being the best ones, and we often use them in our leads, in addition to mentioning other definitions. In this case it is notably difficult, if not impossible, to create a single definition to define the whole article. Therefore we resort to describing several types of definitions in the sections mentioned above (so the Reddittor is wrong), and use a defining watershed difference between AM and mainstream medicine as a suitable introduction to the subject. After all, that's what it all comes down to: "What does one call alternative medicine that is proven to work? Medicine." When that happens to something, it ends up in another article, and not here. Here we describe "that which has not been proven to work, and that which has been proven not to work," as one brilliant description of AM puts it. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:03, 23 December 2013 (UTC)
There is already a concrete proposal that has come out of this, and that's making an FAQ. That way, if someone complains "why isn't it using any single of those definitions" and another person wants to find out why, that question will be answered in the prominent area in the talk page header. I don't believe that every complaint should be taken hook line, and sinker, but Reddit is a high profile website and people can and do believe the complaints that others put up (if another Redditor asks "What is the problem" somebody can finger a controversial article). The article talk page needs an FAQ to tell the general public why it is doing what it does. Even though I'm aware that mainstream science isn't pro-alternative medicine and the complaint didn't have concrete solutions on how to fix it, I did find a way of how to remedy such things in the future (making an FAQ). On top of that, many members of the general public aren't well versed in policies and find it difficult to "break into" Wikipedia because they have to learn so much stuff, so I think having the FAQ explain those policies to those unfamiliar with Wikipedia will make everything better. WhisperToMe (talk) 09:16, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
The problem isn't that we're using a NPOV definition, the problem is that the definition we use is found literally nowhere else in the world in credible sources. Even the reference provided on the page itself says that it is *not* supposed to be used as the definition for alternative medicine! There is a clear consensus from every major medical organization in the world what alternative medicine means, but the lead ignores this consensus to invent its own. Wkerney (talk) 19:08, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps you could post this worldwide clear definition of what AM is, and we can discuss it. With sources of course. I have to say that the one we use atm looks quite accurate to me. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 19:11, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Indeed! I'd love to see this clear definition. If it existed, we'd love to use it. (BTW, you are the first one to ever make such a claim.) There are many definitions which attack the subject from very different angles, and we discuss several of them in the body. The lead and this section (with subsections) are informative. Our description/definition (which is not all-encompassing, but cuts to the very core of the matter) is based on sources in the article. That's what a WP:LEAD does, it sums up content in the article. Since it is based on sources in the article, maybe your accusation shouldn't be aimed at NOR, but at a WP:SYNTH violation. Is that what you mean? If so, then you'll have to demonstrate that to be the case, using the sources we use, in order to prove we have drawn a conclusion not found in those sources. We certainly wouldn't want to misrepresent them.
Also "worldwide" might be a bit of a huge bite, since the concept of "alternative medicine" is mostly relevant in western Europe and North America. We we get further afield, it tends to be traditional medicine which is the focus. While there can be overlap, they are two different concepts.
If you wish to be truly constructive, please help us find more good definitions we can include. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:05, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
Asking for help to find "more good definitions" is pointless if you're ignoring the most credible and high profile medical organisations and journals in the world. Definitions from WHO / NIH / BMJ / Lancet / NEJM have been provided and repeated countless times but are ignored in favor of a non-medical primary source that even discounts itself for general use. Aspheric (talk) 17:16, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
I luckily noticed that this thread is alive again. I wrote above: "I was under the impression that we do include, or at least mention (which amounts to the same thing), other definitions." Which definitions do you feel are missing, and please provide them here? (Listing this alphabet soup -- WHO / NIH / BMJ / Lancet / NEJM -- isn't enough.) I'd like to see them here so I can determine if we are including them or not. We probably should. Even if we don't actually name all of them as individual sources, I suspect we do include the basic format/meaning of their definitions. I've never been against it. If they really say something we don't even mention, then that's simply wrong. -- Brangifer (talk) 02:53, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Most of them are mentioned somewhere, the WHO definition is described in the 18th paragraph, Lancet / BMJ are references 5 and 108 respectively. Some other examples were helpfully listed by @Puhlaa: on the 18th August. The issue is that undue prominence is being given to the NSF definition in the lead. This is a non-medical primary source using a specific definition for a specific purpose. When contrasted with the other sources it fails WP:MEDRS let alone WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. It's not a question of liking the lead definition or not. The only question should be "Is it consistent with the majority of reliable sources ?", the answer is unambiguously "No". The sock left a lot of damage and screwed up the referencing by writing whatever s/he felt like and then attributing it to a random source. @MrBill3: did a lot of work correcting the referencing but this glaring and obvious omission remains. To address this, a really nice edit was proposed by a neutral / skeptical editor which initially had support on all sides. It was pushed to the side and forgotten and that's disappointing and a real shame.Aspheric (talk) 13:08, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
I think the John Diamond quote, mentioned in the "Other critics (UK)" section, is the best definition, and does not receive the prominence it deserves in our article -
"There is really no such thing as alternative medicine, just medicine that works and medicine that doesn't."
Why don't we throw away the rest of the lede, and use that? It is well sourced, and summarises the whole article, and the facts, better than any of the compromises mentioned here. It is also often paraphrased and repeated, and is worth consideration as a left field alternative to the Reddit (non)issue. We shouldn't pander to magic believers. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 15:38, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Diamond was a journalist, "trained as an English teacher at Trent Park College of Education.... Later he taught at an all-girls school... before switching to journalism." While there may be no reason to doubt his competence as such, nor his sincerity, nor his skill at crafting or borrowing a snappy phrase, he was not an academic or practitioner, nor writing as such, in the field of medical science or practice. If he were quoted in the lead, it would be of the type: Among critics, a journalist was quoted in 2003 as having said ""There is really no such thing as alternative medicine, just medicine that works and medicine that doesn't." Its place would be at the end of the present lead, after: "The term alternative medicine is used in information issued by public bodies in the Commonwealth of Australia the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Regulation and licensing of alternative medicine and health care providers varies from country to country, and state to state." Why quote a journalist's opinion there? Perhaps because the "Criticism" section shows this quote to have been referred to with approval by Dawkins in his book A Devil's Chaplain. This would not be the voice of Wikipedia telling readers what to think, but information encyclopedically reported. Qexigator (talk) 16:16, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

There is something to be said for brevity. Q makes a valid point but i agree that the lead could be summed up in a single sentence. The entire article could be summed in five;

  • 1. Alt med is anything outside the mainstream, complementary med is alt med used alongside mainstream medicine.
  • 2. Defining what's "not mainstream" depends on context, time and geography but examples in the west include energy fields and herbs.
  • 3. It arose in the 19th century when it became easier/necessary to identify to quacks.
  • 4. Some think we should do away with the distinction and describe treatments as proven or unproven.
  • 5. Some like it, some don't but it's popular. Aspheric (talk) 22:33, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Comment in brief:
  • 1. Needs more words to be as clear and definite as present version: stet as is.
  • 2. Ditto: but it may be an improvement to add Energy medicine to present version?
  • 3. Confusing as compared with present version: stet as is.
  • 4. and 5. Maybe add something to present version? Qexigator (talk) 00:55, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
4+5, done. Qexigator (talk) 22:14, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
2, done. Qexigator (talk) 22:32, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Category:Pseudoscience revisited

Resolved

No objection to using category.

Once again this is coming up.... there are specific standards for this, and it doesn't depend on single sources or editorial preference, or "common sense"[24], lol. WP:FRINGE/PS is clear about when to use this category, and WP:RS/AC explains that attributing scientific consensus requires an adequate source, i.e. not one the opinion of one person or self-selected group. Most alt-meds certainly qualify for this category but not all -- certainly not acupuncture, which literature I know well -- so the category isn't appropriate for the umbrella of alt-med. This has been global consensus for some time and I summarized the generally-accepted logic on my user page: User:Middle_8#Using_Category:pseudoscience. --Middle 8 (talk) 20:01, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

WP:RS/AC is a red herring. That applies to statements like "the scientific consensus is ...". However, that is an extremely high bar that can't even be surmounted for Homeopathy (and believe me, editors tried very hard to source it there for a statement on pseudoscience). Categorization does not require an explicit statement of academic consensus. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 20:04, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
Per WP:FRINGE/PS, your burden is to show acupuncture falls under "generally considered pseudoscience". Nothing you've said so far meets that.
  • (1) It has to be "generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community" -- full stop. WP:RS/AC puts the sourcing bar higher than you'd like ... so what? We can't just use editorial gut feelings for what the sci community thinks.
  • (2) A topic can't be so categorized "while a reasonable amount of academic debate still exists".
Acupuncture fails both (1) and (2). Homeopathy meets both; there is a sufficient source, before which we didn't have consensus to use the category. This says: "In a statement, the Royal College of Pathologists said they were "deeply alarmed" that the regulation of medicine had "moved away from science and clear information for the public". Which is good enough for our purposes. --Middle 8 (talk) 07:26, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
It belongs in the pseudoscience category because it isn't science. Period. It doesn't matter if you or anyone else thinks it works or not, nor does it matter if, it does in fact work. What matters is the methodology verifying it. Furthermore, acupuncture has also be settled as pseudoscience definitively in the most recent literature about it. So enough already. Greg Bard (talk) 20:07, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
Ask any editor (or scientist or philosopher) what pseudoscience is and you'll get at least slightly differing answers. On WP we need consistent criteria, and that was one reason we had an ArbCom case, WP:ARB/PS. Their findings were incorporated into NPOV, then the NPOVFAQ, and then over to WP:FRINGE/PS. So please go to that, and show how acu falls under "generally considered pseudoscience". --Middle 8 (talk) 07:26, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
We go by what the RS says. Acupuncture is not "generally considered" pseudoscience, it is "obvious pseudoscience" (I mean, meridians, qi ... seriously?). RS on this topic agrees. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 07:33, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Not true; moving to Talk:Acu, see here. --Middle 8 (talk) 09:44, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Further comment: All I'm getting at is that per cited policies, we must populate category:pseudoscience more sparingly than some would like. But that doesn't stop us from citing the less-robust RS's in article space. --Middle 8 (talk) 07:26, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't believe you have been representing the policies accurately as they apply to acupuncture. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 07:33, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
Do a search; like I said, this has been global consensus for awhile. More at Talk:Acupuncture. --Middle 8 (talk) 09:44, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
That doesn't really address my point. I have seen some muddled thinking in past exchanges, it is true. Which policy or guidelines says we need WP:RS/AC before a category can be assigned? Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 09:49, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
The more relevant guideline would be Wikipedia:Categorization#Articles. --Enric Naval (talk) 10:37, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
@Alexbrn: WP:RS/AC is invoked by WP:FRINGE/PS ("generally considered by the scientific community"), and of course isn't needed for every categorization. @Enric Naval: Yes, FRINGE/PS is the most relevant in this case; see last sentence of WP:PSCI. --Middle 8 (talk) 02:44, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
No. "generally considered" ≠ "appears in published RS as an explicit statement that this is the community consensus". RS/AC is needed for the latter. You're inventing rules. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 04:07, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
How else are you going to be sure? This isn't something that we can readily glean from the literature by, e.g., an educated look at what 90% of review articles say. Reliance on sci-consensus-level sources for demarcation of non-trivial topics has worked well elsewhere, so I'm not trying to keep the bar artificially high -- just not too low.
At Talk:Acu you said "pseudoscientific determination is a specialist area". Seriously? What does one have to accomplish to become such a specialist? Why can't I find their stuff on Medline -- or in which database can I find it? You can answer there if you like. --Middle 8 (talk) 04:47, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

We follow RS, like for everything else; it's not hard. Plenty of RS says acu is pseudoscience; hardly any (none?) claims otherwise. MEDLINE is broadly focused on indexing medical articles; pseudoscience determination is a more specialist field inhabited by experts like Steven Salzberg, who says, BTW, "Acupuncture is pseudoscience. It's based on magical thinking about a non-existent 'life force' that has never had one whit of evidence to support it". Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 05:03, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

@Alexbrn: I'm still not clear about this "specialist field of pseudoscience determination", and I think that only looking at sources that "consider the question" will lead to selection bias. The "null opinion" is rarely discussed; why would it be? US Congressmen who have spoken about Obama and impeachment are mostly in favor, but that sure doesn't mean that most of the rest are.
Sure, qi and meridians are archaic and not to be taken seriously, but that doesn't mean we can or should say the same about acupuncture as a whole. Maybe we will someday, but given the state of the literature -- and, e.g., the contrast between the NHS articles on homeopathy[25] and acupuncture[26][27] -- it's premature to depict acupuncture, on the whole, as unambiguously pseudoscientific. But more to the point, I suppose it's not such a big deal to apply category:pseudoscience to this article, since it does apply to nearly every other alt-med. Go for it. Let's continue at Talk:Acupuncture. --Middle 8 (talk) 09:06, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
We cannot and should not interpret silence to mean anything, and for the whole/part question we need to defer to the sources. It seems to me they overwhelmingly say the "science" of acu is based on a non-existent anatomical system, and is therefore pseudoscience. I agree it's no big deal, the category is mostly a navigational aid; most of the guidelines in this area are really concerned with whether a topic "is" fringe, so falling under the spell of WP:FRINGE. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 09:11, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
(copied from Talk:Acupuncture#Category:Pseudoscience_again) "While used for centuries in Eastern cultures, alternative medicines are classified as pseudoscience because they have not been subjected to the same level of rigorous experimental designs as used in the medical profession. Acupuncture, as shown in figure 7.1, (...) To date, there is not significant evidence to support the claim that acupuncture helps any ailment. (...) The holistic-based outlook for curing places these alternative practitioners at odds with the science-minded ANA (American Medical Association). (...) The public continues to flock to these cures despite the lack of data in their support. Another pseudoscience with roots anchored in our science history is astrology." Peter Daempfle (2013). Good Science, Bad Science, Pseudoscience, and Just Plain Bunk: How to Tell the Difference. Rowman & Littlefield. pp. 112–114. ISBN 978-1-4422-1726-3. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:45, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

In lieu of current "Examples and classes" section

May I renew/modify another's proposal [28] for reducing the Examples section? In terms of deleting sections or content; i would remove the 'examples of alt med' section... (3 March 2013) ...The Examples Section was added on 10th January (2013) in a series of edits by an editor using several ip addresses. They were subsequently blocked for socking... (4 March 2013).

Would editors consider the following to be acceptable?

  • remove the images
  • reinstate Classification section, as was per[29] or in a revised version for current version of article
  • for Examples section, no more than Further information: List of branches of alternative medicine, per ditto.

Qexigator (talk) 10:58, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

This sounds like a good idea. Let's explore it. -- Brangifer (talk) 18:44, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
I agree with removing the pictures emphatically. I like the Classifications section you refer to and think it would be better. I think and Examples section could contain more than just a link to the branches perhaps a couple of sentences about the varieties and links to the articles on some of the more prominent examples. Some level of examples should be in an article on a subject. - - MrBill3 (talk) 20:50, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposed for Examples

Would the following be acceptable in place of present version of Examples section, and with removal of all those images and captions?

Further information: List of branches of alternative medicine

Alternative medicines include a wide range of treatments and practices. Some stem from nineteenth century North America, such as chiropractic and naturopathy, others, mentioned by Jütte, originated in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Germany, such as homeopathy and hydropathy,[3] and some have originated in China or India. The following examples include some of the more common methods in use. Most therapies can be considered as part of five broad classes: biological based approaches, energy therapies, alternative medical systems, muscle and joint manipulation and mind body therapies. ... Body-based therapies such as massage, chiropractic and osteopathy use movement and physical manipulation of joints and muscles. Manipulative and body-based practices feature manipulation or movement of body parts, such as is done in chiropractic manipulation. Energy therapies are designed to influence energy fields (biofields) that practitioners believe surround and enter the body. Some energy therapies involve the use of crystals, while others use magnets and electric fields. NCCAM has distinguished two types of energy medicine: one, "Veritable" involving scientifically observable energy, including [[magnet therapy[[, [[colorpuncture[[ and [[light therapy[[; the other "Putative" which invoke physically undetectable or unverifiable energy.[4] Qexigator (talk) 23:04, 27 January 2014 (UTC)


Proposed for Classifications

Would the following be acceptable as a revised version of a section "Classification"?[30] If this is to be used, some of the above text proposed for Examples could be removed to avoid repetition.

NCCAM has developed one of the most widely used classification systems for the branches of complementary and alternative medicine.[5][6] It classifies complementary and alternative therapies into five major groups, which have some overlap.[5]

  1. Whole medical systems: cut across more than one of the other groups; examples include Traditional Chinese medicine, Naturopathy, Homeopathy, and Ayurveda
  2. Mind-body medicine: takes a holistic approach to health that explores the interconnection between the mind, body, and spirit. It works under the premise that the mind can affect "bodily functions and symptoms"
  3. "Biology"-based practices: use substances found in nature such as herbs, foods, vitamins, and other natural substances. (Note that as used here, "biology" does not refer to the science of biology, but is a usage newly coined by NCAAM in the primary source used for this article. "Biology-based" as coined by NCCAM may refer to chemicals from a nonbiological source, such as use of the poison lead in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and to other nonbiological substances.)
  4. Manipulative and body-based practices: feature manipulation or movement of body parts, such as is done in chiropractic and osteopathic manipulation
  5. Energy medicine: is a domain that deals with putative and verifiable energy fields:
    • Biofield therapies are intended to influence energy fields that, it is purported, surround and penetrate the body. No empirical evidence has been found to support the existence of the putative energy fields on which these therapies are predicated.
    • Bioelectromagnetic-based therapies use verifiable electromagnetic fields, such as pulsed fields, alternating-current, or direct-current fields in an unconventional manner.

Qexigator (talk) 23:17, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposed merge of above

Would the following be preferred and acceptable? It simply takes one sentence from proposed "Examples" as intro. for the NCCAM list.


Further information: List of branches of alternative medicine

Alternative medicines include a wide range of treatments and practices. Some stem from nineteenth century North America, such as chiropractic and naturopathy, others, mentioned by Jütte, originated in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Germany, such as homeopathy and hydropathy,[3] and some have originated in China or India.

NCCAM has developed one of the most widely used classification systems for the branches of complementary and alternative medicine.[5][6] It classifies complementary and alternative therapies into five major groups, which have some overlap.[5]

  1. Whole medical systems: cut across more than one of the other groups; examples include Traditional Chinese medicine, Naturopathy, Homeopathy, and Ayurveda
  2. Mind-body medicine: takes a holistic approach to health that explores the interconnection between the mind, body, and spirit. It works under the premise that the mind can affect "bodily functions and symptoms"
  3. "Biology"-based practices: use substances found in nature such as herbs, foods, vitamins, and other natural substances. (Note that as used here, "biology" does not refer to the science of biology, but is a usage newly coined by NCAAM in the primary source used for this article. "Biology-based" as coined by NCCAM may refer to chemicals from a nonbiological source, such as use of the poison lead in Traditional Chinese Medicine, and to other nonbiological substances.)
  4. Manipulative and body-based practices: feature manipulation or movement of body parts, such as is done in chiropractic and osteopathic manipulation
  5. Energy medicine: is a domain that deals with putative and verifiable energy fields:
    • Biofield therapies are intended to influence energy fields that, it is purported, surround and penetrate the body. No empirical evidence has been found to support the existence of the putative energy fields on which these therapies are predicated.
    • Bioelectromagnetic-based therapies use verifiable electromagnetic fields, such as pulsed fields, alternating-current, or direct-current fields in an unconventional manner.

Qexigator (talk) 23:26, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Like. I think this provides a very good overview, with good links to other sources. It may need some tweaks, which can be discussed, but it's very good work! -- Brangifer (talk) 05:14, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Done.[31]. Tweaks/comment welcome. --Qexigator (talk) 15:37, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

But see revert.[32] --Qexigator (talk) 19:11, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

Redone: "Examples" as now at[33] It needs further trimming, but this has stalled due to citing difficulties if sources are deleted with text, for a trimmed version with all text removed from "NCCAM has distinguished..." to "... show the condition of the organs", leaving there only proposed:

  • Alternative medicines include a wide range of treatments and practices. Some stem from nineteenth century North America, such as chiropractic and naturopathy, others, mentioned by Jütte, originated in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Germany, such as homeopathy and hydropathy,[60] and some have originated in China or India. [65] One of the most widely used classification systems for the branches of complementary and alternative medicine has been developed by NCCAM. It classifies complementary and alternative therapies into five major groups, which have some overlap and two types of energy medicine are distinguished: one, "Veritable" involving scientifically observable energy, including magnet therapy, colorpuncture and light therapy; the other "Putative" which invoke physically undetectable or unverifiable energy.[114] --Qexigator (talk) 00:25, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Now done as this version[34]. Maybe Examples could be further trimmed, or removed in toto? Qexigator (talk) 11:17, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Current revised version "Classes and examples" etc

I have been checking, but I am not certain that all the cites and sources of the present version,[35] after my recent moves and trimmings per above, are necessarily beyond reproach! Corrective tweaks welcome. Qexigator (talk) 18:04, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Complementary medicine

The article as I found it showed bias and misrepresented the article references. The phrase used was "not proven by using scientific methods." In fact, some complimentary methods have been studied extensively under rigorous scientific method. My error was using citation #5 instead of #7 - the Oncology article - which stated "Many cancer patients use therapies promoted as literal alternatives to conventional medical care. Such “alternative” modalities are unproven or were studied and found worthless. These can be harmful. An even greater proportion of cancer patients uses 'complementary' therapies along with mainstream cancer treatment. Most are helpful adjunctive approaches that control symptoms and enhance quality of life." This makes a clear distinction between alternative and complimentary. He continues with "Over time, some complementary therapies are proven safe and effective." My edit carried forward this conclusion that not only are some complimentary options not "not proven" but in fact have been evaluated by physicians using appropriate studies. (the soy compound lunasin is one.) Then I couched the words in as neutral a tone as I could muster, and changed the text to "refers to alternative approaches used in conjunction with medical therapies to control symptoms, support pharmaceutical therapies, and/or enhance quality of life." The proper citation is to ref name=CassilethDeng2004 Recommend my edit be restored with the source change.--DeknMike (talk) 06:57, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

In the interest of "accurate definitions" for this encyclopedia (as distinct from promoting growth and profitability), part of an archived discussion seems relevant[36]: section headed confusing "conventional" with "evidence based, and see section Two/three points waiting resolution. Attention is called to the neutrality of the opening wording: "...any practice... not based on evidence gathered using the scientific method...(and) using alternative medical diagnoses". The wording expresses a principal distinguishing feature between AM and 20c. mainstream medicine, which is more fully explained in the Background and History sections, including Medical education since 1910. AM practises include "homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic, and acupuncture": these are based on theories or principles which are intentionally and professedly other than the aforesaid mainstream "scientific medicine". Given that neutrality, why is the connective phrase in a belief a problem? Is it proposed that it is ethical to act, as a physician or therapist, without a belief? Perhaps it is arguable that in the immediate context of the present version of the lead, and in the context of the article as a whole, the words "not proven by using scientific methods" are surplusage and could be left out of the lead but, after much previous discussion, as I understand it this version has been accepted as consistent with sources and npov. Qexigator (talk) 09:31, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
That is correct. The wording is based on a summary of multiple sources found in the body of the article. That's what a WP:LEAD does. Many alternative methods which have been in use have later been studied (without finding them efficacious), but they were not originally promoted based on use of the scientific method, but more often by using anecdotes, or even outright rebellion against the medical establishment, which explains why certain notable individuals and alternative medicine websites consistently refuse to advocate any type of even the most well-proven mainstream methods, but attack them viciously, all the while defending and promoting methods which have been proven to be totally worthless or even dangerous.
The truth still stands, that alternative medicine is defined in multiple ways, and the two most common are "methods outside the mainstream" and "methods which have not been proven to work, or have been proven not to work." Once a method "outside the mainstream" has been proven to work, it becomes mainstream medicine and is no longer considered "alternative". It's a logical catch-22 situation/definition (see here) which ensures that alternative medicine will always be that which has "not been proven to work, or has been proven not to work." By it's very name, it will always stand in contrast to that which has been proven to work, and has then been accepted. "Alternative" (in this sense) can never be a synonym for "mainstream", especially when its obvious philosophical basis is direct opposition and antagonism to mainstream medicine. -- Brangifer (talk) 05:49, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
The subject of this talk topic is "Complimentary" medicine, but you keep talking "Alternative". I do this because Complimentary Medicine redirects here, and to broadbrush effective complimentary strategies as unproven because Alternatives are unproven is a reach. Do we need to split and recreate a Complimentary article, or can we adjust the wording to accommodate effective complementary practices? --DeknMike (talk) 15:37, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
Before splitting is revived, has enough been done to forestall confusion with with Gratis = FOC[37]? But anyhow, in the interest of "accurate definitions" for this encyclopedia, "complementary medicine" is not a self-standing topic: it is "alternative medicine used together with conventional medical treatment". Qexigator (talk) 17:16, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
DeknMike, it's spelled "complementary", and Qexigator is correct. The redirect is because the subject was found to not be worth its own article, simply because it is alternative medicine methods used in conjunction with mainstream methods. It's exactly the same, unproven, methods, whether one calls them "alternative" or "complementary". The definition is the sum total of an article on "complementary medicine", so it doesn't warrant a separate article. That's an old decision here, and since CM is a common term, it is defined in this article. Since the methods used in "complementary medicine" are still the same, unproven, methods, there really isn't much more to do about it. When they are proven, we'll call them "medicine". -- Brangifer (talk) 04:37, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
First, I am not stupid, though I misspell a word occasionally. Second, I apologize for not timewarping back to join your earlier discussions to combine the two topics. As it happens, NIH affirms that "people often use the words “alternative” and “complementary” interchangeably, but the two terms refer to different concepts:
  • “Complementary” generally refers to using a non-mainstream approach together with conventional medicine.
  • “Alternative” refers to using a non-mainstream approach in place of conventional medicine.
    • "This array of non-mainstream health care approaches may also be considered part of integrative medicine or integrative health care. For example, cancer treatment centers with integrative health care programs may offer services such as acupuncture and meditation to help manage symptoms and side effects for patients who are receiving conventional cancer treatments such as chemotherapy."[7] The NCCAM site also has a "research" section you may want to visit to learn about non-medical therapies that now come with proof. [8]--DeknMike (talk) 04:18, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
    NCCAM site Spotlight 2013[38] noted, but as Brangifer has remarked above, when they are proven, we'll call them "medicine". Again, in the interest of "accurate definitions"[39] for this encyclopedia, the need to distinguish "complementary" from "complimentary", and avoid promoting confusion of thought in the reader, is comparable with the need to take care not to promote evading the fact that "complementary medicine" is "alternative medicine used together with conventional medical treatment". The term "alternative" does not affirm that a particular "alternative" treatment cannot be used in good faith, with intent to heal, by regular MD physicians or others, nor that it is necessarily harmful, though some critics may be firmly or weakly of that opinion, on the basis of strong or weak evidence. The history of this article shows how editors have attempted to see that the text and supporting sources accord with the state of the art at the time of writing, allowing for updating with better sources as they become available. Qexigator (talk) 10:13, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

    It's unsurprising that a reddit author used the 'Alt med' page to illustrate the problems with wikipedia because the page (and especially the lead) are crude and obvious examples of flaws and limitations wikipedia tries it's best to avoid.

    It is disingenuous to claim that there is a lack of reliable or consistent sources when the same WHO/NIH/ NCCAM/BMJ/NEJM/Lancet definitions get repeatedly brought out only to be ignored. Other pages define more nebulous (but less emotive) topics without any problems.

    The best attempt at ending these eternal discussion +/- salvaging some credibility for the page came from [2/0] on talk archive 24. Their proposal had broad support from "all sides" but was hampered by a meandering / opaque discussion. I've reproduced it below and I think it's fair, well written and well sourced. Ideally we should vote on it and tinker with it after. It's a lot better that what we currently have and removes the main point of contention that generates these pages and pages and pages of discussion.

    Alternative medicine or complementary and alternative medicine is a diverse set of systems, treatments, and products typically used or originating outside of or not validated by standard medical care. Aside from falling outside mainstream evidence based healthcare, various alternative medicine practices share little with one another and include many distinct and often contradictory ideas and traditions. Use of the term "alternative medicine" dates from the 1970s, coincident with an increased visibility of unorthodox medical practices; historically, the distinction between "standard" and "alternative" practices traces to the nineteenth century, though several alternative medical systems pre-date the development of modern biomedicine by hundreds of years.
    Estimates for the prevalence and acceptance of the use of alternative medicine range from several percent to more than half depending on the precise practises labelled as alternative and the population surveyed. Use has probably been on the rise in the developed world over the past two decades. Regulation varies significantly by jurisdiction. Some alternative medical systems are governed by laws creating a specific license and board of practice, sometimes including a protected professional title such as "Doctor of Chiropractic" (DC) or "Naturopathic Doctor" (ND). Most people who seek alternative treatments do so adjunctive to standard care, with a small but significant minority abjuring conventional care entirely. Reasons cited for seeking alternative care are as varied as the practices themselves, including tradition, mysticism, cost, fear of side effects, bedside manner, and lack of awareness that a treatment or product is not part of mainstream healthcare.
    Safety and efficacy differ greatly among alternative medical practices, and many have not been studied systematically. Biologically active alternative therapies can interact or interfere with medical treatment. Adverse outcomes are more likely when standard care is delayed or replaced with an ineffective or unproven therapy. Billions have been spent researching alternative treatments, much of it on low quality clinical trials; results for some therapies are indistinguishable from placebo, while others are simply unproven and a few, including acupuncture and chiropractic, see a degree of acceptance by the medical community.

    Aspheric (talk) 16:04, 23 January 2014 (UTC)

    The draft for "Rewrite the lead"[40] was opposed then by certain reasoned objections, mainly due to its inadequacy. For a start, the opening words showed an inadequate regard for the need to ensure clarity about the use of "alternative" and "complementary", and its purported summary of the points in the main body further clouded the topic with a series of remarks which were platitudinous or mildly tendentious. One comment then was that it was "a lovely bit of prose"; maybe or maybe not, but it reads too much like a chatty piece of journalism being used as a spacefiller in some magazine (print or online). As the discussion progressed, another comment was that the presentation of the sources was impressive, "but we should not let that obscure the fact that this proposed rewrite is not an improvement on the earlier version,... Is there a tendency for the article to drift towards an unduly USA-centric viewpoint." It is unlikely that the article will be improved as a result of reviving such a draft for a rerun of the discussion. But, more importantly, there is still scope for improving parts of the main body of the article, and that should be attended to before seeking to expand the lead, the present version of which suffices as a succinct npov summary of the whole as it stands.
    Qexigator (talk) 17:21, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
    I think only one editor objected. I disagree that objections were reasoned or that the proposal was inadequate. One vote for, one against, any more comments / votes ? Aspheric (talk) 17:29, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
    Please reconsider the objections and be more specific about disagree that objections were reasoned. Qexigator (talk) 19:08, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
    The lede and the definition provided are appropriate and do not need to be changed. Multiple definitions are in the body and the lede is a well written, concise, accurate summary/synthesis of them. If there are other definitions/ways of discussing/referring to Alternative medicine there are sections (Alternative_medicine#Terms_and_definitions, Alternative_medicine#Examples_and_classes) in the article where they can be included provided they are well sourced. Discussion of use/acceptance Alternative_medicine#Use_and_regulation of Alt med can certainly be added to the existing text when well sourced content is suggested. I suspect most editors have not weighed in as there is no need for change and no sourced suggestion that reflects the content of the article has been proposed. - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:13, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
    Moreover, the article had undergone considerable improvement in content and balance (before and after[41]) as a result of the unemotive and collaborative endeavours of various editors, having regard to the sources available including the WHO/NIH/ NCCAM/BMJ/NEJM/Lancet definitions. The fact is that the proposed draft did not gain the support which its proponent and one or two others thought it deserved. Some changes to the present version of the lead which were being proposed earlier (including August 2013) were no improvement in accuracy or clarity, and the present version has not been shown to be inconsistent with the body of the article and its sources, which have been systematically reviewed. Qexigator (talk) 21:16, 23 January 2014 (UTC)
    When the proposal was last raised, a clear majority of editors expressed support for 2/0 contribution and it is unfortunate that implementation got bogged down in discussion. The current lead / article clearly isn't acceptable since the same issues are (legitimately) raised over and over and over again and the page is now being held up as example of "problems with wikipedia". Editors are obviously free to weigh in/out (none of us are getting paid for this) without speculation on the thoughts of the silent majority. The brazen disregard for the accepted medical consensus on the definition of alt med may make some editors question whether contributing is worthwhile. 2/0 contribution is an improvement on what's currently there. If the consensus is to keep the current version, that's fine but it's ridiculous to complain when the page is held up as an example of a poor / biased editing. The examples section was inserted along with a flood of other damaging edits by a socking editor who was later banned and i've already wasted enough time attempting to polish that particular turd.Aspheric (talk) 00:56, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
    I do not see this as a fair summary of the course of the discussion: When the proposal was last raised, a clear majority of editors expressed support for 2/0 contribution and it is unfortunate that implementation got bogged down in discussion, nor that there has been a "brazen disregard for the accepted medical consensus on the definition of alt med ", nor that the above comments are contributing to the improvement of the article, apart from "The examples section was inserted along with a flood of other damaging edits by a socking editor who was later banned". Has anyone objected to your making edit improvements there? Why fail to acknowledge the considerable improvements others have been making? But see next section re Examples. Qexigator (talk) 10:58, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

    The need to continually restate basic facts is one of the reasons this article is so tiresome to edit. Regarding the lead rewrite; in early Sept, four editors were broadly supportive, one was against and a few had few questions / comments. I doubt we'd agree on whether the discussion that followed was useful / relevant. A summary of definitions used by a number of major medical organisations was most recently posted on talk on 18th August but the article lead still retains the NSF definition. Many have asked why the article starts with a non-medical, non-mainstream, primary source and the answer remains elusive. Regarding the general quality of the article, again I don't think we'd agree and I am reluctant to disparage the earnest work of others. However, I don't think that editors should be surprised or complain when the article attracts criticism both on and off wikipedia.Aspheric (talk) 16:29, 24 January 2014 (UTC)

    At least twice you have made this basic statement ("surprised or complain when the article attracts criticism both on and off wikipedia"), but you are the one complaining, not us. We don't care. Disgruntled editors who choose to air their views at Reddit are free to do so. Reddit is a crowd sourced chat room, and we don't care what they say there. -- Brangifer (talk) 18:34, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
    Denying there is a problem and complaining about users of Reddit is one solution, considered reflection on whether there might be an issue and how to address it is another. The fact that there has been criticism of this article and by extension the whole wikipedia project isn't grounds for celebration. The adoption of feedback tools on many articles suggests wikipedia values users' views Aspheric (talk) 21:36, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
    Please take into account the extensive Explanatory notes. If you wish to press the point, in respect of any particular sentence or paragraph in any of the subsections of 1 Background or 2 History - 19th century onwards, please let us know and state specifically what improvement you propose in respect of it:
    • 1.1 Terms and definitions
    • 1.2 Regional definitions
    • 1.2.1 Institutions
    • 1.2.2 Special terminology used by selected individuals
    • 2.1 Medical education since 1910
    • 2.2 Proponents and opponents.
    Qexigator (talk) 17:52, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
    Not relevant, discussion is over the lead. If the decision is to keep it, then install an FAQ on the talk page as per Whispertome . The frequently asked question is "Why the NSF source is so prominent when reliable secondary sources exist ?". The answer is not important but it would be useful to have something to point the next editor to when this glaring anomaly is next pointed out, rather than filling up the article / talk pages with endless discussion.Aspheric (talk) 20:38, 24 January 2014 (UTC)
    Then just stop bringing it up. IDHT behavior is not an acceptable form of disruption. You don't like the answer? Fine. Just walk away. -- Brangifer (talk) 18:36, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
    I didn't. The same question comes up every few months, posed by different editors. For it to be IDHT there would need to be some sort of response (other than guilty silence). Not clear from your post what forms of disruption are acceptable. Aspheric (talk) 20:16, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
    I agree with @Aspheric: that almost the only virtue of the current lead is its stability. @2over0:'s amended proposal, previously discussed, is, I think superior. FiachraByrne (talk) 23:39, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
    Anymore comments regarding 2/0 proposed rewrite ? It does seem a lot better and lot less controversial and is unique in that it has received diverse support more than once Aspheric (talk) 19:11, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
    In view of comments above and below, and general lack of support, it should be apparent by now that the proposal is a dead duck, beyond resuscitation. Qexigator (talk) 20:38, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
    I think that's a poor assessment. The proposal had a majority of editors in favor on it's first outing before it was talked to death. Since discussion was restarted, 2 editors have expressed support and 2 have expressed opposition. IMHO the proposal has significant advantages over the current introduction and in the long term will be less controversial and more defensible. It would be useful to hear the views of others.Aspheric (talk) 21:12, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
    A dead duck. -- Brangifer (talk) 22:05, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
    I note my own favourable comments there in the archive following two nil's proposal. I have had a change of heart, and find the current lede acceptable, and would not want it replaced. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 22:15, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
    Even if Aspheric's assessment of numbers were right, the question is the quality of the proposal and the weight for and against. The present version is factual, neutrally represents the content as a lead should, and not "controversial" as misleadingly stated. For a reader, unlike a prospective editor hoping to push a particular POV (such as has seemed evident in some of the comments), the least "controversial" presentation is, as at present, a short and accurate lead which immediately lets the reader's eye fall on the list of contents, showing the structure of the article, and leaving the reader free to choose whether to read through as given, or to skip to whichever part interests him/her at that moment, free from editorialising blurb. But any prospective editor or reader new to the topic would be well advised to read the opening sections on "Background" and "History" so as to make sense of what follows. Of course. the article remains open for updates or other improvement.Qexigator (talk) 22:26, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
    Agree with Qexigator present version has my support. Agree with Brangifer if it don't walk and don't quack it's a dead duck. If revision is proposed it can be evaluated here, previous proposal was clearly not accepted. - - MrBill3 (talk) 02:19, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
    hmm, never before have I seen a Norwegian Blue Duck. Perhaps she's pining for the pond? LeadSongDog come howl! 04:50, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

    Chinese medicine

    Chinese medicine should be added as a form of alternative medicine. It is based on unscientific principles, and is certainly not a form of modern medicine.Royalcourtier (talk) 06:23, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

    Try looking at the article's Info box and sections "Terms and definitions", "Regional definitions", "Classes and examples" etc. Qexigator (talk) 07:41, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

    Recent series of edits

    The most recent series of edits has contributed to organization and conciseness and are well sourced. - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:04, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

    ...and this more recent edit, 01:12, 18 February 2014, looks to me like a good improvement[42] --Qexigator (talk) 06:53, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

    Naturopathic medicine is not quackery.

    In Alternative Medicine the editor states: "Alternative medicine is any practice that is put forward as having the healing effects of medicine but is not based on evidence gathered using the scientific method." I have been a naturopathic doctor trained at Bastyr University, board certified in Classical Homeopathy (with an undergraduate degree in Biology) for the last twenty six years and I wholeheartedly disagree with this statement. My family include a neuroscientist at an ivy league university, two gastroenterologists, one cardiologist, four psychiatrists, a pulmonary specialist, two GPs. Early on in my practice I got used to snubs and ridicule at gatherings because they had never heard of naturopathic medicine and were convinced it was quackery. But that was twenty-five years ago. Now I am asked about treatment for certain diseases because the scientific research has emerged, backing up what we had observed to be true. One example is probiotics. One relative initially thought I was crazy to suggest this for his wife's ongoing gastric disturbances in which he had prescribed Prilosec. A year later, back from a gastroenterology conference, he proceeded to shower me with his new knowledge of probiotics with great enthusiasm. Whether bought ( lactobacillus acidophilus etc) or consumed through fermented foods probiotics are showing tremendous success through scientific studies. There are many other examples of wonderful healing that comes from nature that can help people get well quickly and safely that have shown positive results in study after study. The great benefit of course is lowering the cost of soaring healthcare costs. ----

    As per the instructions at the top of this page (and every Talk page in Wikipedia): "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Alternative medicine article.... This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject." Jytdog (talk) 22:42, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
    If there is a reliable source showing that naturopathy is based on evidence gathered using the scientific method, this article would be improved by citing it, and so would the article on Naturopathy which is consistent with the statement that it is not based on evidence gathered using the scientific method. Qexigator (talk) 23:39, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
    It is a pity that the IP's distinguished family didn't prevent himher from going to the darkside. --Roxy the dog (resonate) 00:01, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
    While repeating a call for citations to improve the article in an encyclopedic manner, let it be remarked that it is strange that practising physicians and psychiatrists could have passed through all stages of prescribed education for MD, and to have been sufficiently interested in the practice of a healing art, never to have heard of naturopathy, with or without an aversion to it. This article purports to help more inquiring minds to be adequately informed about "alternative medicine" generally, and provides links to the other articles about homeopathy, naturopathy and many and various other practices put forward as having the healing effects of medicine but not based on evidence gathered using the scientific method. There is a history: what in common parlance is considered today to be (or to have been) conventional "scientific" medicine may sooner or later be regarded by some, at least in part, as akin to quackery, and the term "alternative" does not necessarily imply the kind of bad faith which "quackery" sometimes implies. It is interesting to compare the present version of this article with one from June 2012,[43], and then comparing with a blogger's article dated June 6, 2012[44] -- Qexigator (talk) 09:07, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
    While eloquently stated, I do not understand the point you are trying to make, but as I responded to the OP, this is not a forum. I do agree that better sources are always welcome. Jytdog (talk) 10:45, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
    Basically, a rehash of points made before but recently archived, of which IP may not have been aware. It is a good practice to explain the raitonale of the article to those who drop in to express a grievance such as this IP's, sometimes as a result of having misunderstood what they may have read into it, while leaving open the possibility of letting something be added or corrected if supported by RS. Roxy may have been too ironic to be understood. Cheers! Qexigator (talk) 14:08, 22 February 2014 (UTC)

    Naturopathy has very large amounts of non-scientific modalities and thinking. --Harizotoh9 (talk) 04:57, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

    Just an aside. Probiotics are not a naturopath cure that modern science is only just beginning to grasp. The idea that your gut flora could be modified with better microbes replacing worse microbes was introduced by a Nobel Laureate in 1907, roughly a decade after the term "naturopath" had even been coined and far before any naturopath had considered this. The entire concept of probiotics was conceived of and developed by scientists during the past century, and is only just now being co-opted by alternative medicine proponent's as something they invented.AioftheStorm (talk) 02:20, 27 March 2014 (UTC)

    Sources Used In This Article

    This article, because it's a medicine topic is written with a special standard. While this article is not intended to provide medical advice, is nonetheless an important and widely used source of health information.[9] Therefore, it is intended that the biomedical information in this article is based on reliable, third-party, published secondary sources and accurately reflect current medical knowledge.

    Sources for such content includes literature reviews or systematic reviews published in reputable medical journals, academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant field and from a respected publisher, and medical guidelines or position statements from nationally or internationally recognized expert bodies. Primary sources are generally not be used.

    After reading several "Alternative Medicine" articles I noticed they often had pseudoscience mentioned and an unusual amount of controversy in the articles themselves and it's taken me two days of poking around to find that medicine is a special case in Wikipedia. So my suggestion is to give the readers a heads up by adding the above section, tittle included, just before "See Also", the content is a modified version of Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine), comments would be appreciated.Dougmcdonell (talk) 03:43, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

    1. ^ National Institutes of Health[1]
    2. ^ NHS, England[2]
    3. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Jutte1999 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
    4. ^ Cite error: The named reference NCCAM_EMed was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
    5. ^ a b c d Cite error: The named reference whatiscam was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
    6. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference IOM2005 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
    7. ^ http://nccam.nih.gov/health/whatiscam
    8. ^ http://nccam.nih.gov/research/results/spotlight/2013
    9. ^ Laurent, MR; Vickers, TJ (2009). "Seeking health information online: does Wikipedia matter?". J Am Med Inform Assoc. 16 (4): 471–9. doi:10.1197/jamia.M3059. PMC 2705249. PMID 19390105.
    I think WP:NDA could bear; we don't include a meta-commentary on the construction of articles within the articles themselves. Strictly speaking this isn't simply a medicine topic, it's "alternative medicine" which is as much, if not more, in the province of WP:FRINGE. Alexbrn talk|contribs|COI 06:18, 5 June 2014 (UTC)
    There is "medicine" and then there is whatever is outside of medicine, but which claims to be medicine without evidence of efficacy, or as Tim Minchin puts it: "Alternative medicine” has either not been proved to work, or been proved not to work. You know what they call “alternative medicine” that's been proved to work? Medicine." So, they are two different, yet somehow related, subjects, with very different standards of evidence, sources, control, fact checking, followup, recording of side effects, internal and external controls and regulations, etc..
    Fringe definitely applies here. It's very fundamental to the very description of alternative medicine. In fact, some of the most prominent promoters of alternative medicine are characterized by their uncanny ability to avoid and condemn whatever is evidence based, and shamelessly promote, without a shred of good evidence, the most nonsensical and unscientific methods, products, and ideas. -- Brangifer (talk) 06:57, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

    Image

    The Food and Drug Administration in the United States warns the public to be wary of health products which are marketed without backing of research

    I put this image in the article. Are there any objections to either it or the caption? If so, what are they? Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:26, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

    • Marginal support. I'd like to hear an explanation of what it adds that would be considered encyclopedic. I'll go with the consensus either way. - - MrBill3 (talk) 15:39, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
    It is an illustration of the sort the FDA uses to advertise public health campaigns about alternative medicine awareness. The caption could be changed to further emphasize that point. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:48, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
    • Oppose: not encyclopedic, tendentious. Qexigator (talk) 17:54, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
    Qexigator You are right, it is. I just got feedback about a similar image at Statin#Society_and_culture. My intent was to share an image from a significant public health campaign, not to take a position, and I think changing the caption would make this more encyclopedic. Would it be less problematic to change the caption to "Public health educational advertisements, such as this image from the United States Food and Drug Administration, encourage the public to seek health products which make appropriate marketing claims". I want to emphasize that health organizations give advice about alternative medicine. I hope that FDA imagery is appreciated here; they probably are significant in influencing popular thought on alternative medicine. Or is the image itself problematic? Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:02, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
    The article is not about the FDA or public health warnings. It is a description of the origin and use of the term "alternative medicine", encyclopedically factual and neutral. If there is anything informative in the caption it should be in the text with due citation. The image is uninformative and should be removed. Qexigator (talk) 21:14, 30 June 2014 (UTC)
    If FDA public health warnings that specifically address alternative medicine have used this image that would be clear justification. Such a campaign by the FDA that specifically mentions alternative medicine should also be mentioned in the text. - - MrBill3 (talk) 06:40, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
    Comment: In any case the image is unduly prominent and misplaced, as well as being unencyclopedic for reasons above. It is sensationlist, and as such may serve a particular purpose of FDA, but it does not apply, in good faith, to all "alternative medicine" which is the subject of the article. Editors should not let themselves be swayed by POV. Qexigator (talk) 08:01, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
    Public health educational advertisements, such as this image from the United States Food and Drug Administration, encourage people to be wary of alternatives to medicine which have not been proven safe or effective.[1]

    The image is relevant and I present it in good faith. It was created as part of an educational campaign about the class of products which are an "alternative to drugs or surgery", and in good faith, I interpret that to mean alternative medicine. This information is on the image page and FDA article linked from the image page, and if is is not obvious there, then that information could be moved to the article space. Can someone confirm or refute my premises in adding this?

    1. This image is used in an educational campaign about alternative medicine.
    2. The United States Food and Drug Administration is a reliable source for a certain perspective on alternative medicine.
    3. The US FDA used this image in their own publications because they wanted to associate it with information about alternative medicine.
    4. Content from the FDA on alternative medicine merits some inclusion in this article.
    5. Omission of FDA perspectives would make the article less encyclopedic.
    6. This image, being the only image proposed for inclusion in the article, is not unduly encroaching on better illustrations.
    7. It is not inappropriate to add an illustration to complement a perspective as authoritative as the FDA.

    I think all these things are correct. Are any of them incorrect? Please explain.

    1. ^ Food and Drug Administration (25 April 2014). "Consumer Updates > 6 Tip-offs to Rip-offs: Don't Fall for Health Fraud Scams". fda.gov. Retrieved 1 July 2014.

    Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:35, 1 July 2014 (UTC) Other images could also be added, perhaps from Talk:Alternative_medicine/Archive_22#Examples_and_images. Blue Rasberry (talk) 12:04, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

    "good faith", OK, whether or not use of such an image is within FDA's remit; but that is not enough. The FDA perspective is not lacking here, or if it is, then add what may be suited to the text. Or add to FDA article, linked to this article. This article was improved when those non-informative images were removed and will not be improved by further image-clutter, whether as thumbnail insets or as subjoined gallery. In an article such as this, captions either add no useful information, or tend to slant it. Images are useful to show such things as faces in articles about people, or buildings or artefacts, or copies of paintings, which are the subject-matter of the article. The proposed image may suit a particular point of view, but it lacks such relevance here. Please remove. Qexigator (talk) 12:31, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
    Qexigator Is it your position that no image is appropriate for this article? If that is not your position, what sort of Wikimedia Commons media could theoretically complement this article? I have trouble imagining an image from a source closer to the concept of "alternative medicine" than this one. I removed the image for now, because I think you are saying that this article cannot be illustrated, and if that is your position then that is something which can be resolved with an WP:RfC. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:34, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
    For reasons given, better no images here. If you have useful text to propose to improve the text, what is it? Your pov noted. Qexigator (talk) 13:39, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
    Qexigator There is a lot I could say about my POV if necessary - check my userpage. In this case, my interest is just in getting any relevant non-text media to the article. I do not want this picture in particular, just any pictures generally, and I found this picture in an FDA archive and thought it would be useful. It is the best FDA picture that I have found to express their general point of view and what they usually publish with regard to alternative medicine. If I proposed an RfC, then I might propose this along with other pictures inserted in the past. I do not want to talk about text at all and captions can be anything; I am just advocating for the insertion of pictures in the article just because I believe that illustrations improve the encyclopedia whenever they are relevant. The bar I would propose for image relevance and inclusion in this article will be relevance and inclusion in reliable sources of the sort from which this article's text is derived. Let me think a bit more. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:54, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
    I had seen your user page and noted your pov as there plainly expressed. I note you fail to answer my comments about improving the article. A desire for images is not enough. Please remove this one, and spare us a needless RfC. Qexigator (talk) 14:22, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
    Removal noted[45] Qexigator (talk) 14:30, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
    My argument is that the picture inherently improves the article. In this case, we can additionally presume that if the reliable sources from which we derive text use illustrations then it is useful for Wikipedia articles to likewise use illustrations, because Wikipedia is supposed to be a reflection of reliable sources. I find it odd that you would dispute not my picture, but the addition of pictures in general, and think I must be misunderstanding you somehow. Many other Wikipedia articles have pictures and I fail to understand why you want no pictures here. You correctly judge and present my position - "desire for images", except that I would add that the images should be relevant, and that taking the illustrations from reliable sources is supporting evidence of relevance.
    Is there more to your position than "desire for no images, regardless of relevance"? Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:59, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
    Look again, I have disputed the image, and given reasons when images can contribute to improving an article and when not. Like most editors, I would prefer not to be further drawn into a pointless discussion over this article. Qexigator (talk) 15:11, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

    "Images are useful to show such things as faces in articles about people, or buildings or artefacts, or copies of paintings, which are the subject-matter of the article. The proposed image may suit a particular point of view, but it lacks such relevance here." So only pictures of alternative medicine are appropriate for inclusion, right? And furthermore, the image I proposed has such low relevance that it does not merit inclusion, right? Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:22, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

    A good compromise is to make the image smaller and to place it in the body of the article. QuackGuru (talk) 16:06, 1 July 2014 (UTC)
    • I think there is something important that several editors have been overlooking, the FDA is not referring to alternative medicine in general with this image. This is an image to depict specifically "Health Fraud Scams", and should be used in an article about health fraud scams and not an article about alternative medicine. Even if health scams run amok in alternative medicine, it is not a fair characterization of the entire field because not everyone is trying to scam people, and some alternative health claims are rather conservative in their stated benefits.AioftheStorm (talk) 22:10, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
    Agree. Qexigator (talk) 22:27, 2 July 2014 (UTC)
    The image description says it depicts an "alternative to drugs or surgery", which means alternative medicine. With regard to "fair characterization", this is not something to consider. Wikipedia considers whether a source is reliable and whether information derived from it is fairly reflected on Wikipedia. I assert that the FDA is a reliable source for information on government regulation of alternative medicine and that the image is as they distribute it. I would love to see additional images from other reliable sources presenting other perspectives about government regulation. I do not accept the "No true Scotsman" argument to say that scams are not really alternative medicine and thus should not be discussed here, especially when the article already says so much about regulation and safety. There might be better images than this one to say the same thing, but having an image which is from a regulatory health campaign is not unwarranted. This article is better with regulatory perspective here - in non-text form - than it would be with this perspective omitted. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:28, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
    I thought someone might try to pull that quote to justify this being a warning about alternative medicine, but it doesn't, unless you would also agree that this statement—
    • when you see claims like “miracle cure,” “revolutionary scientific breakthrough,” or “alternative to drugs or surgery.”
    —makes this image a warning about revolutionary scientific breakthroughs. It doesn't matter how many points of intersection health frauds and alternative medicine have, if they don't intersect at every point then they are not equivalent, and I gave you one very good point where they do not intersect and that is the fact that many who practice alternative medicine really believe their treatments work and are not trying to rip people off as occurs in a scam. Since they aren't the same you can't use them interchangeably here.AioftheStorm (talk) 02:10, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
    • I think in its current form (size reduced, caption improved) it is appropriate for this article. - - MrBill3 (talk) 13:46, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
    AioftheStorm I agree with everything you say about this being an inappropriate, biased, and unfair image, but that does not address my assertion that regardless of fairness, this image is an FDA perspective and the article is improved by showcasing that significant point of view even if it is biased and misleading.
    I disagree that all scam or fraudulent alternative medicine loses the designation of "alternative medicine", and then is recategorized as "not alternative medicine" and "health fraud". I see two types of health care - medicine and alternative medicine. The divisions are not "good medicine", "good alternative medicine", and "everything bad in health care"; instead, problems exist in both medicine and alternative medicine and the problems are part of the institutions. It might be a good idea to add this image to Medicine#Legal_controls, but it is not obvious to me that this ad can be interpreted as a criticism of, for example, products made by big pharma. I am saying all of this to address your argument, but I still feel that this line of thought is not relevant. Fair or not, and regardless of being misleading or wrong, the image is part of an FDA campaign and is intended to be biased commentary. This Wikipedia article and many governments devote a lot of their communication space to regulatory controls, and for that reason and because the FDA is a reliable source, some image from the FDA on alternative medicine ought to be present here to showcase that prominent and necessary perspective. I would like to see this image balanced with a contrasting image about government regulation which encourages the use of alternative medicine, but even if such a balancing image is not available, that does not diminish the validity of having some image in this article which presents the perspective the FDA wants propagated. Can you propose a better image from a regulatory entity? Here is the FDA's flickr account, where all media is public domain. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:50, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
    I do not claim that being a fraud makes something not alternative medicine, I am claiming that being a fraud doesn't automatically make something alternative medicine. I am essentially making the claim that if you have a picture of a random man with a kilt, that that man is not necessarily a Scotsman, and that you are essentially taking a picture of a random person with a kilt from an article about kilts and posting it into an article about Scottish people. Something being a scam does not automatically make something alternative medicine, and this FDA articles is about scams, very explicitly so, and it doesn't even mention alternative medicine.
    As for whether or not this ad can be applied to things such as "products made by big pharma" I assure you that it can. Just look at all the prescription testosterone products being marketed for "low T" and the claims they make. Also I have looked a bit through the FDA's flickr account but many of those images are not owned by them and are still copyrighted unfortunately.AioftheStorm (talk) 20:03, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
    For those reasons, and others given above, it is sufficiently clear that this image does not belong here and should be removed. Qexigator (talk) 20:38, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

    The situation is not "sufficiently clear". The picture is the best that the Wikipedia has to visually depict the FDA's perspective. Qexigator and AioftheStorm, it is my view that you seek to suppress the fact that government regulatory processes influence the concept of "alternative medicine". I have no particular favoritism for this picture, but I fear that no non-text media which exemplifies government regulation could please either of you. If I choose to seek further comment, I will make these assertions:

    1. The FDA is a reliable source for a notable government regulatory perspective
    2. There ought to be some representative non-text media in this article from a government regulator
    3. The image I proposed is a typical example of the kind of media available
    4. No one proposed anything better
    5. To omit this image is to slant Wikipedia to present a perspective other than what is found in reliable sources

    I invite you to seek compromise with me as a representative of the community which feels that a governmental perspective is worth including. Can either of you describe the ideal non-text media that you would want to see in this article from a government perspective, if the outreach materials actually produced by government do not meet your expectations? Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:17, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

    I'm confused here, my only concern is that of relevance as I do not believe this is an image depicting alternative medicine. I am not concerned with establishing whether the FDA is a reliable source. If you can tell me why you believe this image is about alternative medicine then that would help move this discussion forward.AioftheStorm (talk) 00:32, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
    See below. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:29, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
    • Have you read the article? Previous editing has ensured scrupulous reporting here of the "governmental perspective", in numerous places: see refs 2 a-l, 3 a-2, 4, 10 a-b, 11 a-b, 12 a-b, 14, 15, 19, 21, 23, 24, 26 a-i, 35, 39, 41 a-b, 52, 78, 109, 111 a-b, 179, 180. Your points, have been addressed (see also below) but you have chosen to disregard the reasoned answers and comments. It may help if you would now reconsider your points more carefully, taking full account of others' views, not yours alone. Qexigator (talk) 12:54, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
    Qexigator No I have not read the article, but I did look for pictures, and none were there. I am acknowledging that you wish for me to read text, and saying that I do not wish to do this. My wish is for non-text media, and so far as I can tell, no available non-text media from a government source pleases you and even all other pictures are not liked by you unless they are posted elsewhere and not in this article. My point is that Wikipedia articles often have pictures and that available pictures are of the standard used in many other articles. Your perspective, as I understand it, is that no available pictures improve this article. Text does satisfy me because text is not relevant to my proposal for adding pictures for balance. Pictures do not please you, because you feel that they do not communicate clearly. Does this seem correct? If you care to talk by phone or video contact me atSpecial:EmailUser/Bluerasberry. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:05, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
    • Seeing that above comment (and below) is from one who has "not read the article", and apparently does not intend to, but instead invites private contact by phone or video, it seems that further discussion here can be considered closed, per This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Alternative medicine article. Qexigator (talk) 13:47, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

    With regards to finding a better image I will note that the FDA has alternative medicine fraud listed specifically as a subcategory of health fraud. This reaffirms my opinion that images by the FDA depicting generic health fraud are therefore not specifically addressed towards alternative medication, as well as perhaps being a place where images depicting alternative medicine from the FDA may be found. Specifically I would be fine with an image such as this one being used to illustrate a generic FDA warning about unregulated alternative medicine which could pose a hazard.AioftheStorm (talk) 01:04, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

    Yes, a reader of the article will find that in section 6.2[46], reflist 12b. That could be a place for the image. Qexigator (talk) 05:21, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
    AioftheStorm Yes, I like your idea better than mine. Having any FDA or any government's regulatory media in the article would suit me. Instead of only that picture, though, I propose to upload the PDF to Commons, export it to Wikisource, and show the picture as a link to the original document in this article I do not particularly favor this flyer and any could be used, but my proposal is for any non-text content from any government regulator to always be in this article.
    To close the last issue, about the image I initially proposed being relevant: I maintain that there are two types of medicine - conventional medicine and alternative medicine. For people who accept that dichotomy, and perhaps you AioftheStorm do not, I think that the FDA information at their scams page (excepting the warnings about falsely labeled fake prescription drugs) can only be interpreted to be applicable to alternative medicine, and not to be FDA warnings about the drugs that the FDA itself regulates. I have also said that there are notices that this refers to alternative medicine. When you say, "If you can tell me why you believe this image is about alternative medicine then that would help move this discussion forward", what I understand is that you believe that these FDA warnings are for the FDA's own approved drugs, which does not see plausible to me. Is this what you believe? If that is not what you believe, do you believe that there are more than two classes of drugs, that is, more than "conventional" and "alternative"?
    Besides that image, the FDA makes various video warnings about how it regulates alternative medicine. Here are some of those videos, and they would be other options. I do not plan to take any position on which of the many available choices is best, so yes, your flyer is completely satisfying to me, and I hope including a flyer encourages other health organizations to also apply free licenses to their educational materials.
    Thoughts from others? The proposal is to put this PDF into the article as an example of relevant outreach media from a reliable source, and to illustrate an example way that governments talk about alternative medicine. Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:29, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
    "what I understand is that you believe that these FDA warnings are for the FDA's own approved drugs,"
    They are for there own approved drugs as well as for non-approved treatments and alternative medicine. I gave you a classic example, various testosterone treatments marketed as solving a whole host of general ailments, which the sad fact of the matter is many doctors will prescribe to patients without even testing their androgen levels to see if they even need it. If you ever go to a dinner sponsored by a drug manufacturer, you would see exactly the types of claims the FDA is warning people against, most people who attend do so for the free food and don't buy into it though. I don't feel like making a case though about how many drugs are marketed inappropriately and how these warnings apply to them as well as alternative medicine since the point in no longer relevant.AioftheStorm (talk) 03:05, 6 July 2014 (UTC)
    Health campaign flyers, as in this example from the Food and Drug Administration, purport to give information to the public about safe use of alternative medicine
    AioftheStorm Agreed, FDA-endorsed scamming in the pharma industry is horrible and in my opinion worse and so much larger than non-FDA endorsed scamming in the alternative medicine industry. Let's leave that issue. Here is the file. The plaintext on Wikisource still needs to be proofread, but this is how it would look in the article. Anyone clicking through would be able to either read the djvu file or read the text on Wikisource. Cool? Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:31, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
    Now added.[47] In my view, acceptable as is, but others may propose to revise caption. Qexigator (talk) 22:21, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

    Proposal to have any images or non-text media in article

    Wikipedia routinely uses images. "Alternative medicine" is a popular topic and it merits some images. Here are some images which were used in this article in the past.

    • Acupuncture is a Traditional Chinese Medicine, where it is believed that a supernatural energy called qi flows through the body, helping propel the blood, and that insertion of needles in the body can have an effect on that energy flow and thus on health and disease.
      Acupuncture is a Traditional Chinese Medicine, where it is believed that a supernatural energy called qi flows through the body, helping propel the blood, and that insertion of needles in the body can have an effect on that energy flow and thus on health and disease.
    • Ayurvedic medicine is a traditional medicine of India, and includes a belief that use of traditional herbs and having the spiritual balance of the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism, including by suppressing natural urges of food intake, sleep, and sexual intercourse, can be used to heal.
      Ayurvedic medicine is a traditional medicine of India, and includes a belief that use of traditional herbs and having the spiritual balance of the religions of Hinduism and Buddhism, including by suppressing natural urges of food intake, sleep, and sexual intercourse, can be used to heal.
    • A Botanica of traditional Hispanic medicines may look like a pharmacy of science based medicines. The difference is not in their appearance, but in the basis for belief that the medicines have a healing effect.
      A Botanica of traditional Hispanic medicines may look like a pharmacy of science based medicines. The difference is not in their appearance, but in the basis for belief that the medicines have a healing effect.
    • In the Western version of Japanese Reiki, the palms are placed on the patient near Chakras, centers of supernatural energies, in a belief that the supernatural energies can transfered from the palms of the practitioner, to heal the patient.
      In the Western version of Japanese Reiki, the palms are placed on the patient near Chakras, centers of supernatural energies, in a belief that the supernatural energies can transfered from the palms of the practitioner, to heal the patient.
    • Chiropractic was developed in Canada and the United States in the belief that manipulation of the alignment of the spine affects a supernatural vital energy in the body that is part of the cause of health or diseases.
      Chiropractic was developed in Canada and the United States in the belief that manipulation of the alignment of the spine affects a supernatural vital energy in the body that is part of the cause of health or diseases.

    These images were removed as described at Talk:Alternative_medicine/Archive_22#Examples_and_images.

    Why are there no images in this article? Is there some problem with any of the above images? I propose to put them all back into the article. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:28, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

    I don't know why this article has no images, even glancing through that discussion I can't see why those images weren't put it. I would say feel free to add them.AioftheStorm (talk) 02:15, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
    That discussion seems to have preceded the deletion (end Jan 2014) by about a year. Not at all clear why the deletion was done and not an improvement.LeadSongDog come howl! 04:10, 3 July 2014 (UTC)


    Images do not necessarily improve an article, and may be no more than trivial clutter. In articles such as this, captions add no useful information, or tend to slant it either way. Images can be useful when showing such things as faces in articles about people, or buildings or artefacts, or copies of paintings. At most, an image for "Alternative medicine" generically may be acceptable. This article was improved when those non-informative images were removed. They can be seen at the pages linked to the specific articles, which is where the caption information belongs. Maybe something like the images at the following sites could add a graphic overview of the topic.

    Qexigator (talk) 08:08, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

    or this image, ready made from Commons: MarkhamStouffvilleHospitalLibrary3.JPG[48]

    Qexigator (talk) 09:08, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

    I think some of the images suggested by Qexigator warrant consideration. I tend to agree the images removed served little purpose. I think in general images improve articles but need careful consideration of encyclopedic nature and value. - - MrBill3 (talk) 09:32, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

    Generic images

    The Commons image linked above is now inset at "Classes and examples", the other three are now in "External links". Qexigator (talk) 13:29, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

    Gallery

    The images proposed at the top of this section could be more suited for adding as a Gallery at List of branches of alternative medicine, which is linked under the "Classes and examples" subtitle. Better still, would be to make a new article for it, with some introductory text and crosslinks with Alternative medicine and other articles such as

    Qexigator (talk) 14:31, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

    That seems reasonable. I just readded the outdated Template:Alternative medicine to the bottom of this article in anticipation of sorting the right places to put these things.
    Still, even if these pictures are more appropriate elsewhere, that does not mean that they are inappropriate here. I really like Qexigator's suggested image from Nature for inclusion in this article as it is ideal, but even if we have nothing of that high quality, I am still a proponent of inserting images for the sake of having images even if they only have narrow relevance and are not as good as non-free content. I have a lot of sympathy for encyclopedia users who need to see non-text media in articles to have a good experience, and even if the images above are not ideal, I take the position that some mediocre images are better than having no images. Captions can be cut or say anything. Others may disagree with me, but I expect that much of Wikipedia errs on the side of having some images in articles. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:46, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

    Experienced editors will be mindful that the focus and priority in this type of article is the communication of information about the topic, as reliably as can be, not inserting images for the sake of providing "a good experience" according some other irrelevant criteria. There are now two inset images, at least one of which could be seen as relevant to the actual topic (though neither is strictly needed), and links to others which are of a type that could usefully be added to the article if available at Commons.[49] --Qexigator (talk) 17:27, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

    Nature of opposition - no single examples should be allowed

    The Cochrane Collaboration suggests that some traditions in medicine, like Ayurveda, should be distinguished from what it calls conventional therapy.[1]

    It seems that Qexigator opposes depiction of any particular kind of alternative medicine, but would support images which show multiple types of alternative medicine. This single image was deleted.

    1. ^ Manheimer, E.; Berman, B. "Cochrane Complementary Medicine Field". The Cochrane Library. John Wiley & Sons. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |displayauthors= ignored (|display-authors= suggested) (help)(subscription required).

    To what extent am I characterizing your rationale for deletion fairly? Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:11, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

    • As mentioned above, seeing that the comment is from one who has "not read the article", and apparently does not intend to, but instead invites private contact by phone or video, it seems that further discussion here can be considered closed, per This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Alternative medicine article. Qexigator (talk) 13:47, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
    Thank you. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:25, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

    Specific proposal

    AioftheStorm and LeadSongDog, you commented above that some images would be an improvement. So that I am not misunderstanding you, could you please state again your opinion about the extent to which you feel this article would be improved by depicting some single examples of alternative medicine? The chiropractic image is currently in the article. Please see how I have positioned it, shortened the caption, and put a citation in the caption. I did that with all of these. How would you feel about any or all of these going into the article?

    • The United States tax system favors chiropractic over some other kinds of alternative medicine[1]
      The United States tax system favors chiropractic over some other kinds of alternative medicine[1]
    • The Cochrane Collaboration suggests that some traditions in medicine, like Ayurveda, should be distinguished from what it calls conventional therapy.[2]
      The Cochrane Collaboration suggests that some traditions in medicine, like Ayurveda, should be distinguished from what it calls conventional therapy.[2]
    • Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese Medicine. The best available evidence reports that it can relieve some but not all types of pain.[3]
      Acupuncture is a traditional Chinese Medicine. The best available evidence reports that it can relieve some but not all types of pain.[3]
    • Herbal medicine is popular in the United States.[4] Such treatments may be purchased in stores.
      Herbal medicine is popular in the United States.[4] Such treatments may be purchased in stores.
    • Reiki is a type of energy medicine which is used to relieve pain.[5]
      Reiki is a type of energy medicine which is used to relieve pain.[5]
    1. ^ "Medical and Dental Expenses (Including the Health Coverage Tax Credit)" (PDF). Internal Revenue Service, Dept. of the Treasury, US Government. 2012-12-10. p. 2.
    2. ^ Manheimer, E.; Berman, B. "Cochrane Complementary Medicine Field". The Cochrane Library. John Wiley & Sons. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |displayauthors= ignored (|display-authors= suggested) (help)(subscription required).
    3. ^ Ernst, E; et al. (2011). "Acupuncture: Does it alleviate pain and are there serious risks? A review of reviews". Pain. 152 (4): 755–64. doi:10.1016/j.pain.2010.11.004. PMID 21440191.
    4. ^ Barnes, P.M.; Powell-Griner, E.; McFann, K.; Nahin, R.L. (2004). "Complementary and alternative medicine use among adults: United States, 2002" (PDF). Advance Data from Vital and Health Statistics (343): 1–19. PMID 15188733. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)
    5. ^ Thrane, S; Cohen, SM (2014 Feb 27). "Effect of Reiki Therapy on Pain and Anxiety in Adults: An In-Depth Literature Review of Randomized Trials with Effect Size Calculations". Pain management nursing : official journal of the American Society of Pain Management Nurses. PMID 24582620. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

    I might seek an outside third opinion in addition to whatever you say. Again, I am not advocating for any particular pictures, but I would like for some pictures to be placed in this article and for this article to always have some pictures or non-text media in it, and I hope that examples of alternative medicine might be the least controversial start to doing this. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:25, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

    I maintain my original statement, I think any of these images would be fine. Alternative medicine is broad and there isn't going to be a single image that depicts it all, the best we can do is depicting some of the more major examples.AioftheStorm (talk) 00:56, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
    I don't see a strong reason for requiring only one image, though something like the Nature figure would be useful. Re the proposed new captions:
    1. the tax comment seems undue (that code treats acupuncture the same way), US centric, and the "some" is weasel.
    2. the Ayurveda idol image has no clear connection to the Cochrane mention, better to simply state that Ayurveda is based on a Hindu text, the Ayur Veda.
    3. "some but not all types of pain" seems to mean "only neck pain" in the cited source
    4. a study of 2002 data published in 2004 should not be summarized in present tense. PMID 15188733 can provide more recent and International update. "Is popular" doesn't really say much: what's the threshold for popular?

    LeadSongDog come howl! 16:53, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

    Third opinion

    I am using WP:3O for an outside opinion - there actually are more than three people here. Could someone comment on the extent to which the pictures listed above in "Specific proposal" are an improvement to this article, as compared to not having these pictures and only having a bookcase as in the current version? Blue Rasberry (talk) 10:59, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

    I have declined the request at [[WP:3O], as 6 editors have participated in the image discussions to date. For what it's worth, I think some images would be useful in this rather large article. @Bluerasberry: in future filings at WP:3O, please link to the whole section in which the issue is discussed, not merely to a subsection in which you announce that you've made a filing. Also, the link above should have been to the version that was current at that time, like this:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Alternative_medicine&oldid=615635856
    rather than linking to the article history and leaving everyone to figure which version would have been current at the time you made the link. --Stfg (talk) 12:05, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

    Could this image and caption be used?

    Nurse at a nursing home in Norway. In many societies, practitioners of traditional medicine or alternative medicine are an important primary health care provider, either as integrated within or remaining outside of the formal health care system. These include practitioners in acupuncture, Ayurveda, herbalism.




    Qexigator (talk) 18:21, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

    No. I don't see any relevance for unsourced speculation, and the nurse, Norway, and nursing home are all irrelevant to the subject of alternative medicine. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:43, 4 July 2014 (UTC)
    I agree with Brangifer, this image isn't really relevant to the article.AioftheStorm (talk) 00:54, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
    Agree with Brangifer. Too tangential not adequately relevant, verging on OR.
    I am however interested in seeing how the the appropriately (IMO) represented mainstream American (FDA) attitude towards alternative medicine compares and contrasts with other nations/cultures attitude and official attitude/stance regarding what is defined here (on WP) as alternative medicine. I'd like to see an interesting counterpoint image to the one added by Blueraspberry. I also think a due weight argument could carry the inclusion of such an image.
    Outside that I find the Nature image illustrative of the subject of the article and would think it's inclusion valuable (if copyright issues are not a problem). - - MrBill3 (talk) 13:15, 5 July 2014 (UTC)
    I agree that another government perspective would be ideal. US is the only government that produces public domain work, though, so that is one barrier, plus US does more regulation than anyone else and is overrepresented in these kinds of discussions. I am already looking for anything like this picture. I would love an example of - for instance - an Indian or Chinese government-funded regular doctor, dentist, or nurse who does alt med along with regular duties. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:55, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

    Given that, for various reasons, the images so far put on this page for comment are not acceptable, and nothing else suitable has been found at Wikimedia Commons, we seem to be waiting for one of the linked images to become available from there, such as the Nature pictorial diagram for CAM domains and some of the most common examples[50] currently in the "External link" section, and/or the FDA notice about Ayurvedic products linked at the end of the the article's "Use and regulation" section, or something better than either of those, and in any case which is consistent with the written text and free from unsourced speculation. Qexigator (talk) 18:42, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

    • The Nature image is copyrighted, but I have seen many images like it and one could be produced by an editor here if they so desire bearing in mind that original research guidelines are less strict for images(WP:OI). I would view similar diagrams for inspiration, and try to produce an original diagram for use in this article.AioftheStorm (talk) 02:53, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

    Images for "Terms...", "History...", "Examples", etc.

    The version at 15:39, 7 July 2014[51] has an image supporting the text in "Terms and definitions", four more in "History – 19th century onwards", and one in "Examples". Qexigator (talk) 15:51, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

    Update: now,[52] 1 in "Terms and definitions", 3 in "History – 19th century onwards", and 3 in "Classes and examples". Qexigator (talk) 19:17, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
    + 2 in "Regional definitions" - may need adjustment for size? Qexigator (talk) 22:08, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
    + and 1 in "Efficacy".[53]. --Qexigator (talk) 22:32, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

    The score as at 22:16, 8 July 2014[54] Terms and definitions: 1. Regional definitions: 2. Institutions: 1. History: 4. Classes and examples: 3. Criticism: 1. Use and regulation: 1. Efficacy: 1. Appeal: 1. Qexigator (talk) 22:29, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

    +1 more in "Terms and definitions" with caption about comparative extent of use of "alternative medicine" in hospitals. Qexigator (talk) 15:37, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

    Reflection on pictures added

    I am happy with the inclusion of pictures in this article as it is now. I understand that pictures are not necessarily an improvement for all people, but I advocate for an audience that wants health information and likes to see pictures even if they are only marginally relevant. I appreciate everyone who has responded to my request to include pictures in this article.

    I only say that these pictures are good enough, and not that they are the best. If it in the future anyone wants to add or change pictures, then there can be discussion about whether that is an improvement. If I were to offer suggestions for improvement, I would wish for more diversity in what is depicted. Here are some things I wish that I could see here:

    • a graphic representing various kinds of alternative medicine, as in this copyrighted Nature illustration
    • pictures of women who contributed to alternative medicine
    • images showing alternative medicine outside a Western context
    • more depiction emphasizing complementary medicine, or the integration of alternative and conventional medicine
    • anything suggesting the narrative of how alternative medicine becomes conventional medicine as it is shown to be effective, or proving how this has happened in the past

    Thanks again everyone. I think this article had a great reworking and I like this version. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:53, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

    Please note that the images are consistent with the fact that "One common feature of all definitions of alternative medicine is its designation as 'other than' conventional medicine." Can you identify any woman who has notably influenced the formation of what has come to be known as "western medicine" on a par with the influence of the men whose images now appear in the article? Or who has been founder of one of the main forms of alternative medicine in the same period? Your other points seem to confirm a previously expressed lack of reading the text of the article, but perhaps you now feel some further information should be reported in it, which can be properly sourced. We should not be treating this article if it were a commentary on a picture book. Qexigator (talk) 16:59, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
    Qexigator Thanks for proposing so many excellent illustrations in response to my asking. I am flattered by the enthusiasm you have shown in meeting my request because I know it took a lot of time to do what you did.
    You fairly describe my position when you say, "treating this article as if it were a commentary on a picture book", as I am doing exactly that and openly acknowledge it and say that it is good to do so. If you choose to continue to engage with me, expect me to maintain that position. Please forgive me if my position does not please you, and thanks at least for finding compromise with me. I believe - acknowledging that many others might not - that including the most relevant pictures even if they are not highly relevant inherently makes Wikipedia more encyclopedic. I am happy with the pictures you added and am thinking of stepping away from the article for maybe a long while, to see if anyone else has comments.
    "Alternative medicine" may be other than "conventional medicine" but "complementary and alternative medicine" may not be. Also there are times in history when the divisions between alternative and conventional medicine did not exist. There is room for talking about both, as when you suggested mentioning how nurses may administer both conventional and alternative medicine. Many or perhaps most people use both alternative and conventional medicine simultaneously without thinking of a difference, and I hope this article reflects whatever sources say about this.
    Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health influenced health practices by encouraging abstention from all treatment except prayer. It would be controversial to call this "alternative medicine".
    Mary Baker Eddy comes to mind as a great and respectable woman in the field of alternative medicine who has had influence comparable to or exceeding the men pictured, as her work is still one of the world's most influential health texts. Mother Teresa also promoted spiritual healing in circumstances which she knew conflicted with conventional medicine, and Kolkata and wider India today still follow the recommendations she made. I know nothing about alternative medicine in China, India, Africa, Russia, South America, or other places outside Western culture. Maybe someday someone else could recommend other candidates; just one significant personality in either India or China would equal the influence of the entire Western world.
    Sorry for any tension I may have created between us. You have done more than I should ever expect to accommodate me, and I appreciate that. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:31, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
    Eddy (irrespective of her being a woman) is notable as having advocated a form of piety or religious devotion, conduct and behaviour which amounts to abstaining in principle from medical treatment of any kind, conventional or alternative. Qexigator (talk) 23:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
    I think she advocated for spiritual treatment but do not have sources at hand. Is prayer CAM on Wikipedia, or are we making a distinction here? I thought there was only conventional and alternative medicine, but you seem to be suggesting that refusal of all treatment other than prayer is something beyond either of those. Here is a great introduction to distinguishing the two, but right now, it seems like this article includes prayer as CAM.
    • Tippens, Kim; Marsman, Kevin; Zwickey, Heather. "Is Prayer CAM?". The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine. 15 (4): 435–438. doi:10.1089/acm.2008.0480.
    If prayer is CAM, and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is a health text, and if we are looking for other candidates of similar influence to the proposed on this page (all excellent choices already) then she seems like a viable candidate for inclusion here. I could be mistaken about any of this - I really am not sure. Blue Rasberry (talk) 02:24, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
    Note that the principle of her teaching is abstention from medical treatment of any description, and this article would not be improved by reporting or implying otherwise: "For the Christian Scientist, a brilliant pioneer of drugless healing, spurning the mummeries of Oriental medicine and winning from her infallible cures an everlasting renown, replaces the suffering figure on the Cross." Fisher, H. A. L. Fisher (Herbert Fisher), Our New Religion (1930). Reprint 2003, Kessinger Publishing Co. ISBN 978-0766139268 [55]. Also available as pdf download[56] --Qexigator (talk) 09:52, 10 July 2014 (UTC)
    I know nothing of her methodology and am unable to understand the source to which you linked. Whatever she taught, it seems that she said that that people following her methods would have their diseases cured to a greater extent than people doing nothing in particular. Some people would call it alternative medicine but many people would not. It would be controversial for this article to say so but to do so would not be baseless, as at least this source supports it.
    • editor, Jacqueline L. Longe, project (2005). "Christian Science healing". The Gale encyclopedia of alternative medicine (2nd ed. ed.). Detroit: Thomson/Gale. ISBN 978-0787674243. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); |last1= has generic name (help); External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:13, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

    Noting that this page is "for discussing improvements to the Alternative medicine article", let it suffice to say that such merits and conduct as hers may excite in many respect or veneration, but that does not surmount the objection to her inclusion in the article. Qexigator (talk) 15:37, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

    Excessive

    Discussions in Archive 25, per[57], likely to be of continuing relevance:

    • In lieu of current "Examples and classes" section[58]
    • Image[59]
    • Proposal to have any images or non-text media in article[60]
    • Why is this sentence in the lead?[61]
    • An editor added a misleading sentence in the lead. Why?[62]

    Qexigator (talk) 06:47, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    Lead criticism paragraph

    Resolved

    This is fully supported in the well-sourced article body -

    The scientific community has criticized alternative medicine as being based on misleading statements, quackery, pseudoscience, antiscience, fraud, or poor scientific methodology. Promoting alternative medicine has been called dangerous and unethical. Testing alternative medicine has been called a waste of scarce medical research resources. Critics have said "there is really no such thing as alternative medicine, just medicine that works and medicine that doesn't", or "Can there be any reasonable 'alternative' (to medicine based on science)?"

    FloraWilde (talk) 00:50, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    And belongs in lead per FRINGE. It was removed again. I have restored it. - - MrBill3 (talk) 11:03, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    Unsourced coment removed

    An editor made unsourced additions that promote an individual.[63]. These were deleted. FloraWilde (talk) 14:34, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    Why is this sentence in the lead?

    Resolved

    This sentence is in the lead, "The term alternative medicine is used in information issued by public bodies in the Commonwealth of Australia the United Kingdom and the United States of America." with references to articles that use the expression.

    • The sentence is not supported by the cited sources. The articles cited may use the expression, but they do not report that they use it. So it violates WP:Synth and WP:OR by going beyond what is in the sources. It is about the sources, not in the sources.
    • It violates WP:UNDUE because it gives undue weight to three countries.
    • The information is trivial. It does not deserve prominence in the lead, or even in the article. Any Wikipedia article title is used by some body in English speaking countries, or it would not meet WP:notability. This sentence would be instantly deleted in any other article at WP. This is a separate violation of WP:UNUDE, in that it gives undue weight to trivial information. FloraWilde (talk) 23:31, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
    collapse extended discussion of likely resolved section

    It is an unusual sentence to be in the lead, or anywhere in the article. *It is not accurate - "alternative medicine" is an expression, not a term.

    • It is not supported by the sources. The sources do not say the expression is used by themselves.
    • It is WP:OR, since no he source says it is a "term" used in information by those same source.
    • It selects in a biased way, three countries with literature on the article topic that mention the topic in their literature, but ignores all the other countries where it also appears.
    • Furthermore, the sentence provides almost no valuable content for a reader. Each and every article title at Wikipedia is used by some source. So if the sentence is appropriate in the lead in this article, a similar sentence would be appropriate in the lead of each and every article.
    • Even if it should be in the article, the lead is not the place for it.

    Each of these reasons is sufficient to delete the sentence. I will delete the inaccurate, unsourced, WP:OR, biased, content-free, misplaced sentence, unless there is reason given to keep it in the lead. FloraWilde (talk) 10:46, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

    That is unduly peremptory, especially as relying on a spurious point at variance with common language usage, and not even amounting to pedantry. The lead is just the place for a succinct summation of what is expanded at some length in the article, which has been scrupulously sourced. Please try not to be unduly combative, it doesn't help. If you know of sources from countries other than those cited you are welcome to add them. Normally, we try not to put sources in the lead, which is a summary of main content, but it can help when an article's editing has been contentious, particularly when attacked by persons who have not taken the trouble to read and reflect upon the content of the article as a whole. It is a simple fact that the words "alternative medicine" are used in information issued by the public bodies of the English speaking countries mentioned to denote those forms of medicine which are the topic of the article. It shows that it is used in public discussion and by official bodies addressing the public. Qexigator (talk) 11:30, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
    The sentence is not supported by the cited sources, so violates WP:RS. It violates WP:Synth and WP:OR. FloraWilde (talk) 14:37, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
    There's often an implicit conflict between WP:Synth and WP:LEDE, but that is an issue that should be addressed at WT:LEDE. In this case, the wording puts WP:UNDUE emphasis on those three countries, as well as on unnamed "public bodies". Further, it misses the point of WP:REFERS. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a dictionary. Simply state instead that "The wide range of health care interventions that have insufficient quality evidence basis to establish their safety or efficacy are alternative medicine", unless someone provides MEDRS sources which contradict that. There's no need to cater to the whole range of variations in the lede. Even wp:V does not require citations in the lede, when using wp:SUMMARY style. LeadSongDog come howl! 17:34, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
    Thank you for restating your point as above. Agreed that the sentence is questionable, to the extent that I do not see in the main part of the present version of the article anyrthing supporting "The term alternative medicine is used in information issued by public bodies in the Commonwealth of Australia." If that goes, the mention of only UK and USA may be out of place in the lead, and no harm done if deleted. But I do not see it as objecionable in principle or in fact. It may be no more than a leftover from a period when this article was being much revised. Qexigator (talk) 07:22, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
    Now done. Qexigator (talk) 07:34, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
    OK. I tagged this section as resolved. Please remove the tag if I made an error. FloraWilde (talk) 16:17, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    Note in lead not needed

    Resolved

    Is a note providing the dictionary definitions of heal and healing needed in the lead? The word healing is wl'd and there is a full article on the topic. Do we need definitions of fairly basic words? Propose removing note with two refs from lead. - - MrBill3 (talk) 07:37, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    The note was added 20:12, 2 July 2014[64], in response to edit of[65]. In view of the unusually contentious character of the article, I am inclined to let it stay. It seems that while using the same words, inquiring readers may give them different meanings. We need to try and stabilise at least on common words, before trying to give npov information about the topic for which the article is named, which we know is not all that easy, bearing in mind that this is not a promotional article for or against. Qexigator (talk) 07:58, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
    If consensus supports keeping it I won't remove it, but really? The word is wikilinked doesn't that provide all the explanation needed? The article suffers from an excessively long notes section already. I'm pretty sure policy doesn't support providing dictionary definitions of common words. Whatever consensus comes up with is fine by me. Bigger fish to fry etc. - - MrBill3 (talk) 09:19, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
    Such a note is not needed. It clutters the article. I deleted it. FloraWilde (talk) 14:07, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    In my view, the present version[66] is on the whole an acceptable way of presenting the given information to inquiring readers, including the lead. As with other articles, it is unlikely ever to be perfectly to the satisfaction of all regular editors. Qexigator (talk) 09:32, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

    Another discussion of how to edit plant and herb articles with alternative medicine content

    There is another discussion on guidelines for editing plant and herb articles with alternative medicine content here.[67] FloraWilde (talk) 16:25, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

    Is NCCAM WP:RS on physics, anthropology, sociology, and theology?

    This Wikipedia article is the place to write about the NCCAM. NCCAM is a body of political appointees.

    NCCAM is not RS for Christian theology

    The NCCAM link used as a source in the article[68] says "Practitioners of energy medicine believe that illness results from disturbances of these subtle energies (the biofield). Examples of practices involving putative energy fields include... Intercessory prayer, in which a person intercedes through prayer on behalf of another". It is highly dubious that the Pope ever declared that prayer works by a manipulation of a "biofield" or of "subtle energies". NCCAM is not RS for its own theological assertions. It is a primary source on this, and so cannot be used in our article. FloraWilde (talk) 13:52, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    NCCAM is not RS for anthropological or sociological statements about alt med

    NCCAM has no expertise in these fields, so is not RS for anthropological or sociological statements about alt med. FloraWilde (talk) 16:37, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    Without apparent anthropological or sociological expertise, NCCAM, a political body, invented a nonsense "classification" scheme... Would you show acceptably sourced information to that effect? I should like to see what you are relying on before committing to your proposal. Qexigator (talk) 17:03, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    NCCAM is not RS for physics statements

    NCCAM has no physics expertise. An example is "energy fields". The TCM concept of qi predates Faraday's invention of the physics concept of "field", which appears to be superimposed on TCM by western non-physicists at NCCAM and elsewhere. FloraWilde (talk) 16:37, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    I think you'll find extensive published sources on TCM that discuss energy fields and on alt med that discuss the concept of vitalism (and other concepts/frameworks used in the article) well beyond NCCAM. I also think there are many published sources that discuss alternative medicine using similar classification schemes. NCCAM carries some weight despite your dismissal what do published sources say about their scheme? You have presented an interesting perspective and like Qexigator I'd like to see some sources that discuss alt med and consider it in the framework you are suggesting (which is what by the way?) Although the change in context you suggest is interesting and your ideas well considered do the published sources that discuss alt med talk about in from this angle? WP represents views in published reliable sources in proportion to their prominence so bring the sources and lets take a look. - - MrBill3 (talk) 17:21, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
    Unfortunately, I do find "extensive published sources on TCM that discuss energy fields". That does not make these sources RS, either. "Energy field" is well-defined terms in physics. FloraWilde (talk) 16:37, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
    I think that is why we use the quotation marks here. If this were a physics article that would be one thing, however as extensive published sources discuss TCM and "energy fields" then we reflect that discussion here. The fact that these "energy fields" are inconsistent with the scientific understanding of energy fields is something we must draw from sources not original (albeit seemingly obvious) research. When discussing alternative medicine we summarize what is in reliable sources. Unless you have very high quality sources that state things like NCCAM has no standing to comment on sociological aspects of alternative medicine their statements provide content. I'd like to see some anthropological sources of higher quality, surely there has been some study by academics with credibility. To evaluate NCCAM's reliability as a source for the purported mechanisms, proposed theories (and assorted other...) you need a source that says they have no credibility on these topics. - - MrBill3 (talk) 16:56, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    Energies "yet to be discovered" is NCCAM weasel wording

    The NCCAM link used as a source in the article[69] says "Energy medicine is a domain in CAM that deals with energy fields of two types - Veritable, which can be measured (and) Putative, which have yet to be measured". Describing supernatural energies as "yet to be measured", rather than "nonexistent". NCCAM uses this weasel wording to get funding to test for these "yet to be discovered energies". None of this is RS at WP. Citing NCCAM itself as a source, as is done over and over in the article, violates WP:RS in that NCCAM is a primary source on its own assertions and wording, not a secondary source. Most reliable secondary sources , such as those found in a Google Scholar search, are overtly or implicitly critical of NCCAM and it wording and diversion of resources to test nonsense claims of effects of arcane "energies". FloraWilde (talk) 13:47, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    By all means roll out the higher quality sources, propose revised content based on them. There are definitely those who think NCCAM is a bamboozle (to use a term favored by Sagan). If there is higher quality published research or more academically rigorous analysis of the "putative" energy fields proposed for explanations of alt med, show em, paraphrase and summarize em, propose revisions. Your arguments are good but without sources and concrete proposals they lack substance and verge on OR. I have to say "yet to be discovered" is leading, weasely and unencyclopedic prognistication. The means of effect for homeopathy are "yet to be discovered" because one can't discover that which doesn't exist. It's not like there is some clear observation leading scientists to search for these "putative" energy fields, much like the lack of clear observations driving scientists to explore ghosts. - - MrBill3 (talk) 17:08, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    NCCAM asserting a classification system does make it have objective reality

    • The Wikipedia template displayed at the top of the article, assumes this classification system has objective reality.
    • The article section structure itself assumes the classification system is real.
    • NCCAM stating a classification system does not make it real.

    FloraWilde (talk) 16:37, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    Well it makes it a real classification system. It is also a classification system employed by a major research funding arm of a national government. If the basis of the classification system is flawed (invalid, nonsensical...) that needs to come from RS. As above roll out the RS and propose revisions. - - MrBill3 (talk) 17:12, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    Orphaned references in Alternative medicine

    I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Alternative medicine's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

    Reference named "Cohen":

    I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 15:48, 5 August 2014 (UTC)

    Possible disruptive editing

    Denial

    See "Collaborative editing" and "Recent edits, future images" below, and in particular, see in the collapsed section below, "The attempt to attribute the mayhem quote as if Qexigator's is particularly interesting to anyone evaluating the problem. It shows an inability (on FloraWilde's part) to understand what was being said, or a deliberate attempt to mislead". For the record, the supposed "disruptive" edits have not been demonstrated to be so, the repeated use of that term by FloraWilde does not substantiate the supposition, and it is denied and rebutted by.... Qexigator (talk) 10:52, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

    Collapse outdated section for readability of talk page

    Disruptive editor, please read Wikipedia:Topic_ban#Topic_ban. FloraWilde (talk) 21:34, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    More appropriate pointers would be to WP:Arbitration Committee/Discretionary sanctions, WP:FRINGE and WP:DE. When referring to an editor it is also appropriate to identify the editor and provide diffs that are examples of the behavior objected to. - - MrBill3 (talk) 08:27, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
    Agree with Bill - we ought to know who is being disruptive. I can't see anything out of the ordinary at the moment? -Roxy the dog (resonate) 08:59, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
    I think most regular editors here will see that as a somewhat misguided proposition. While noting its maker's conduct after recently starting here, and pov as expressed in "Is NCCAM WP:RS on anthropological or sociology statements?" above, and assuming good faith on that person's part, I have seen nothing disruptive here even after that editor came in. Perhaps some overhastiness on that person's part, maybe due to unwillingness to engage in collaborative editing. Qexigator (talk) 18:08, 31 July 2014 (UTC)


    All are invited to consider what may be the actual problem this person has in intervening in such a way, against the normal collaborative editing process here. The attempt to attribute the mayhem quote as if Qexigator's is particularly interesting to anyone evaluating the problem. It shows an inability to understand what was being said, or a deliberate attempt to mislead. See [70] linking to [71] This information has been openly available to anyone who chose to look for it. It has no bearing on the editing of this article. Qexigator (talk) 19:10, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
    In the circumstances, and the discussions on this page and archived, all are invited to consider whether this sort of thing [72] is collaborative editing or otherwise, taking into account "Better presentation of the images"[73] Qexigator (talk) 19:31, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
    I would strongly consider the evidence provided in following threads (and the above quote) as quite possibly pointing to disruptivea pattern of editing by Qexigator. At the same time I would note this editor's engagement on talk , the time frame involved and previous discussions. I am not sure if this engagement shows at attempt at collaboration or a pattern of tendentiousness. I would always lean towards AGF but... I would also note that FloraWilde has displayed what could only be characterized as brashness.
    I suggest that editors with a history of working on this page apply some scrutiny. - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:00, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
    I went back and tried to tone down my brash language (it may still need more toning down), and will try to watch out for brashness in the future. Rather than continue to point to more examples of the pattern of editing, I have suggested a fix of it in the section below, i.e., restoration of the deleted content and its sources, which once accompanied the already restored images.[74] FloraWilde (talk) 20:32, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

    An editor has both a past and recent history of disruptive editing, on this article and on others. Examples from the history in this examples are in the collapsed sections below. Some are left uncollapsed for discussion of restoration of deleted images and examples, done against consensus.

    • The editor has a past history of disruptive editing that led to an investigation concluding violation of WP:SP. The editor's final comment before being blocked was an admission of deliberate disruptive editing to create mayhem at Wikipedia[75] -

    "We play experimental mayhem, medieval ballads and stones style mamma mia romps" - Qexigator

    • The editor makes edits that are misleading, not supported by sources, and against consensus, such as repeatedly putting in edits that homeopathy is described as "dilutions other than standard".[76]
    • The editor has a history of disruptive edits to the lede by deleting content and reliable sources.[77] and [78].
    • The editor removed images of alternative medicine practices, and replaced them with off-topic images such as an image or Queen Victoria and her family.[79] and [80]
    • The editor removed a very large number of very reliable sources.[81]
    • The editor made disruptive and self-contradictory edits regarding images.[83]
    • The editor made disruptive edits removing entire well sourced sections from the article.[84]
    • The editor then again ignored WP:SP, and disrupted my talk page.[85] This may' be a different editor, and just be a coincidence
    • The editor's history is part of a pattern of disruptive edits.[86]

    The subsections below contain more examples and diffs. FloraWilde (talk) 00:27, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

    A sentence added by an editor is not appropriate

    Collapse subsection on improper homeopathy edits to improve readability of talk page

    An editor just added this sentence -

    "Some forms of alternative medicine, such as homeopathy and naturopathy, are based on the use of preparations and dosages other than those that are included in the standard pharmacopeia recognised by hospitals and physicians providing conventional medicine. "

    Homeopathy is water. Characterizing this as "preparation other than standard" is inappropriate. It is not supported by the article body, and is not supported by any reliable source. FloraWilde (talk) 23:26, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

    Try and understand the purport of text as you find it, instead brusuqely rubbishing it, or it might be thought you are pushing some sort of private or sponsored agenda (it can happen). Look again: the sentence does not say as mistakenly paraphrased. It draws attention to the indisputable and notable fact that the practice of homeopathy and of naturopathy are based on the use of preparations and dosages which are other than those that are included in the standard pharmacopeia recognised by hospitals and physicians providing conventional medicine. If you want to debate the merits of such preparations and dosages, perhaps you can find a better place to do it. Qexigator (talk) 17:35, 25 July 2014 (UTC)
    I think the sentence should be removed because it doesn't actually tell us anything. It is essentially saying "Some forms of alternative medicine, such as example 1 & 2, are based off the use of alternative preparations and dosages than conventional medicine". The statement is almost a tautology.AioftheStorm (talk) 20:48, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
    It was banal (different thing is different!) so I removed it Bhny (talk) 21:34, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
    I tagged this as resolved. Please remove the tag if I made an error and it is not resolved. FloraWilde (talk) 16:17, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
    The editor keeps adding it back into the article[87] (a disruptive edit). The editor just added -

    A distinguishing feature of some forms of western alternative medicine, such as homeopathy and naturopathy, is treatment based on the use of preparations and dosages other than those developed in modern scientific medicine and comprised in the standard pharmacopeia recognised by established medical schools and used in hospitals and by physicians providing conventional medicine.

    There are no reliable sources saying homeopathy is "other than.. standard... dosages" . The editor had made hundreds of edits to this article, so is familiar with WP:RS. FloraWilde (talk) 16:57, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

    Possible disruptive deletion of RS and content

    Collapse subsection to improve readability of talk page

    This content and sources removed from the lead. It goes to the original academic debate over the expression "alternative medicine", and subsequent debate over CAM.

    Critics say the expression “alternative medicine” is deceptive because it implies there is an effective alternative to science-based medicine, when there is not. They say the term “complementary” is deceptive because the word implies that the treatment increases the effectiveness of (complements) science-based medicine, when it does not.[1][2][3][4]

    I will restore the well-sourced deleted content. FloraWilde (talk) 23:08, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

    Support restoring content, well sourced. No rationale provided, nor consensus, for removal. - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:10, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

    More possible disruptive deletion of RS, content, and entire sections

    Collapse subsection to improve readability of talk page

    An editor removed entire subsections of the criticism section[88] The editor did this so many times over the past few hundred edits, with misleading edit summaries, that the content continues to be absent.

    Collapsed examples
    • The editor removed the sources and content from the subsection titled "Misleading use of terminology". This was removed -

    Proponents of alternative medicine often use terminology which is loose or ambiguous to create the appearance that a choice between "alternative" effective treatments exists when it does not, that there is effectiveness or scientific validity when it does not exist, to suggest that a dichotomy exists when it does not, or to suggest that consistency with science exists when it may not. The term "alternative" is to suggest that a patient has a choice between effective treatments when there is not. The use of the word "conventional" or "mainstream" is to suggest that the difference between alternative medicine and science based medicine is the prevalence of use, rather than lack of a scientific basis of alternative medicine as compared to "conventional" or "mainstream" science based medicine. The use of the term "complementary" is to suggest that purported supernatural energies of alternative medicine can add to or complement science based medicine. The use of "Western medicine" and "Eastern medicine" is to suggest that the difference is not between evidence based medicine and treatments which don't work, but a cultural difference between the Asiatic east and the European west. The use of the term "integrative" is to suggest that supernatural beliefs can be consistently integrated with science and the result has scientific validity.[5]

    • The editor removed most of the critical content and sources on the section on Traditional Chinese Medicine.[89] This was the original material and sources -

    Traditional Chinese Medicine is a combination of traditional practices and beliefs developed over thousands of years in China, together with modifications made by the Communist party. Common practices include herbal medicine, acupuncture (insertion of needles in the body at specified points, massage (Tui na), exercise (qigong), and dietary therapy. The practices are based on belief in a supernatural energy called qi, considerations of Chinese Astrology and Chinese numerology, traditional use of herbs and other substances found in China, a belief that a map of the body is contained on the tongue which reflects changes in the body, and an incorrect model of the anatomy and physiology of internal organs.[1][6][7][8][9][10] The Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, in response to the lack of modern medical practitioners, revived acupuntcute and its theory was rewritten to adhere to the political, economic and logistic necessities of providing for the medical needs of China's population.[11] In the 1950s the "history" and theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine was rewritten as communist propoganda, at Mao's insistence, to correct the supposed "bourgeois thought of Western doctors of medicine" (p. 109).[12] Acupuncture gained attention in the United States when President Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, and the delegation was shown a patient undergoing major surgery while fully awake, ostensibly receiving acupuncture rather than anesthesia. Later it was found that the patients selected for the surgery had both a high pain tolerance and received heavy indoctrination before the operation; these demonstration cases were also frequently receiving morphine surreptitiously through an intravenous drip that observers were told contained only fluids and nutrients.[6]

    This is what was left after the deletion of sources and content[90] -

    Traditional Chinese Medicine is based on a concept of "spirit" called qi,[13] considerations of Chinese Astrology as in acupuncture,[7] traditional use of herbs and other substances found in China, and a belief that a map of the body is contained on the tongue, which reflects changes in the body.[14]

    • The editor removed all of the content and sources from the criticism section titled "Taking resources from real medical research, abuse of medical authority".[91] The following section was deleted -

    The NCCAM budget has been criticized[15] because, despite the duration and intensity of studies to measure the efficacy of alternative medicine, there had been no effective CAM treatments supported by scientific evidence as of 2002 according to the QuackWatch website.[16] Despite this, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine budget has been on a sharp sustained rise to support complementary medicine. In fact, the whole CAM field has been called by critics the SCAM.[16] There have been negative results in almost all studies conducted over ten years at a cost of $2.5 billion by the NCCAM.[17] R. Barker Bausell, a research methods expert and author of "Snake Oil Science" states that "it's become politically correct to investigate nonsense."[18] There are concerns that just having NIH support is being used to give unfounded "legitimacy to treatments that are not legitimate."[19] Use of placebos in order to achieve a placebo effect in integrative medicine has been criticized as “diverting research time, money, and other resources from more fruitful lines of investigation in order to pursue a theory that has no basis in biology”.[4][20]

    • The editor removed the entire subsection titled "Based on incorrect reasoning",[92] removing this content and reliable soucrces -

    A letter by four Nobel Laureates and other prominent scientists deplored the lack of critical thinking in research on alternative medicine that was supprted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).[21]

    • The editor removed the entire subsection titled "Based on ignorance of basic scientific facts".[93] This was deleted -

    In 2009 a group of scientists made a proposal to shut down the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. They argued that the vast majority of studies were based on fundamental misunderstandings of physiology and disease, and have shown little or no effect.[19]

    • The editor removed the entire subsection titled " Ineffective and misleading statements on efficacy".[94]

    I will restore the well-sourced content. FloraWilde (talk) 01:14, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

    Support discussing restoring content. This is starting to look like disruptive a pattern of editing to me. - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:13, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
    However better diffs with DATE and edit summary would be useful. Some of this seems to be edits from some time ago that have probably been discussed to some extent. - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:33, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
    Better yet, make concrete positive proposals for improving the article (see examples section below), rather than brashly asserting, then focusing on, past patterns of editing, as you correctly pointed out I may have been doing. FloraWilde (talk) 15:25, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    Possible disruptive image editing

    Collapse subsection to improve readability of talk page

    An editor added off-topic images.[95] These include images of Queen Victoria, of major figures in the history of scientific medicine, of major scientific medicine institutions, of a flowchart of someone's conception of the scientific method, and even an image of the NSF building. These are not images of alternative medicine, the article's subject. Other images are of historic figures that are ontopic to a history of alt med article, but clutter this article and are WP:UNDUE compared to images of alternative medicine, the article subject.

    Per WP:UNDUE, I replaced the offtopic images with on-topic images, of actual kinds of alternative medicine, taken from the corresponding articles at Wikipedia.[96] I moved the image of the inventor of chiropractic to the relevant history section in which he is discussed, and quotes to the sections where they are on-topic. I made the images of equal size so as not to give prominence to any particular practice or figure.

    The same editor then deleted most of the criticism section in the lead, deleted the on-topic images, moved the image of the founder of chiropractic back away from the paragraph where he is first discussed, but did not mention this was being done in the edit summaries.[97]

    • The editor added many off-topic images, of Queen Victoria, of historic figures in medicine (not alt med), of medical buildings (not alt med buildings), etc.[98]
    • Then after the images were replaced with images of actual alternative medicine practices, taken from the respective Wiki pages for those forms of alt med, the editor removed all of the on-topic images, with a very misleading edit summary "restore to previous, suffices for lead".
    • Then the editor argued that there should be no images at all, despite having just hours before engaged other editors in an onslaught of argument for his/her own numerous (off-topic) images"Images do not necessarily improve an article, and may be no more than trivial clutter..
    • Then when there was consensus to have the images[99], [100], [101], the editor removed them all anyway, with the very misleading edit summary "rmv images per talk", the opposite of what just happened at talk, where the editor was the only editor arguing for no images (while at the same time in another section contradicting himself/herself by arguing for his/her own images).
    • Then the editor argued against and deleted the single image for criticism[102].
    • Then the editor, failing at talk to keep the image for criticism out of the article, began to edit war by repeatedly putting that image at the very top (after just arguing it should not be in at all.
    • The the editor shrank all the images except the criticism image, which he/she put at the very top, after having just argued and edited in the opposite direction [103].
    • The editor then started an edit war to keep this new edit, directly contradicting his/her previous edits and arguments[104]. FloraWilde (talk) 01:07, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
    I restored to the version by MrBill3 before deletions of content and on-topic images.
    I restored to version of MrBill3 by removing reinserted offtopic image and incorrect rewording].

    FloraWilde (talk) 15:53, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    Possible disruptive deletion of RS and consensus lead content

    Collapse section on deletion of RS and consensus lead content for readability of talk page

    This was the lead at the time an editor discussed above first edited here.[105]

    Alternative medicine is any practice that is put forward as having the healing effects of medicine, but is not based on evidence gathered with the scientific method.[22] Alternative medicine is usually based on religion, tradition, superstition, belief in supernatural energies, pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, or fraud.[23][1][24][25] Alternative therapies lack scientific validation, and their effectiveness is either unproved or disproved.[1][26][27] The treatments are those that are not part of the conventional, science-based healthcare system.[28][29][30][31]

    The lead second sentence read, "Alternative medicine is usually based on religion, tradition, superstition, belief in supernatural energies, pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, or fraud." That sentence was supported by 9 sources (6 sources were blocked into one footnote). The 9 sources were -

    It is hard to imagine a more reliable list of sources about the basis of alternative medicine. Equally authoritative sources supported the third sentence. There were lengthy discussions and consensus at talk on the lead first sentence and first paragraph.[106] The consensus was to keep this lead first sentence and paragraph, and it remained for months.

    After months passed with this stable lead first paragraph, the editor ignored the consensus and unilaterally changed the lead first sentence so that it had almost no content, and moved the lead first paragraph to be the second lead paragraph.[107]editor changed the lead first sentence from this -

    Alternative medicine is any practice that is put forward as having the healing effects of medicine, but is not based on evidence gathered with the scientific method.

    to this -

    Alternative medicine is a term used in information issued by public bodies in the United States of America.

    After months of being stable in the lead, and against the lengthy talk page consensus,[108] the editor then unilaterally removed this entire paragraph out of the lead, to a section below.[109] Why were these highly reliable and authoritative sources removed from the lead second sentence? I will restore them according to the previous consensus and stability, unless there is a new consensus not to do so. FloraWilde FloraWilde (talk) 00:46, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

    For the time being, in a word: disruption denied. Qexigator (talk) 22:13, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
    I removed the word. The question remains. FloraWilde (talk) 00:46, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
    The alteration of a fairly stable lead without consensus does not seem appropriate. I for one do not support these changes. The removal of a bundle of citations which supported it seems even more inappropriate, especially given the quality of these sources. Some commentary from the community seems in order. - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:07, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
    As I stated above I support a return to the previous first paragraph of lead as in the box above. I also invite comments by additional editors. To me it is an accurate and extremely well sourced first paragraph. - - MrBill3 (talk) 18:49, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    Possible disruptive pattern of editing

    Collapse section on more examples of improper image editing and pattern of editing
    • The editor came to an article that started with an article body section of examples, with simple and short, well-sourced subsections for each example, and an informative image for the actual practices of the examples.[110]
    • Without consensus, the editor moved the section with simple examples and images to the bottom of the page, beneath an imponderable mass of theoretical verbiage that would intimidate most encyclopedia users, and leave any casual user with no idea at all of what alternative medicine practices actually are. (This is discussed, with examples, in other sections at this talk page.)
    • Without consensus, the editor then deleted the longstanding consensus images of alternative medicine practices .[111] The editor made no mention of deleting the images in the edit summaries. The editor deleted the simple examples sections, and their sources and content (see examples in other sections on this talk page).
    • Without consensus, the editor then added disruptively off-topic images with massively long, off-topic captions, with these diffs [112] and this end,[113] including -
    • An image of “Queen Victoria Prince Albert and their nine children”, unrelated to the article subject.
    • An image of Marcia Angell, a critic of alternative medicine quoted in the body as saying “There is only medicine that has been adequately tested and medicine that has not, medicine that works and medicine that may or may not work.”, with the misleading caption describing her as a “critic of biases in the medical establishment”.
    • An image of a science based medicine bookshelve with no books on alternative medicine at Markham Stouffville Hospital Library, with a “Medicine” sign, and misleading caption “Hospital libraries can help provide information about health care and "alternative" medicine.”
    • An image of the “United States Department of Health and Human Services”, which has no relation at all to this article subject.
    • An image of “The headquarters of the Department of Health (United Kingdom) and National Health Service (England) at Richmond House Whitehall, London”, unrelated to the article subject.
    • An image of historical science-based medicine figure William Osler, with a massive caption (and contentiously arguing against any captions, as discussed in other sections of this page) – “William Osler c. 1912, one of the founding physicians of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, sometimes called the “Father of Modern Medicine” as author of The Principles and Practice of Medicine (1892), written at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, and noted for his part in the history of medical diagnosis, teaching as the basis of treatment the question "What disease does this patient have, and what is the best way for treatment?", putting emphasis more on the classification of the disease and using the remedies available for it to be reversed or ameliorated, than on a patient's biochemical individuality”
    • An image of and caption saying “London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine founded in1899 by Patrick Manson, first situated at Albert Dock Seamen's Hospital”, which bears no relationship with this article’s subject.
    • An image of and caption of “William Henry Welch, founding president of the Board of Scientific Directors at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (1901), and founder of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health (1916)”, which bears no relationship to the article topic in any way.
    • An image of and caption of a scienc-based medicine college, “Peking Union Medical College, founded in 1906 by American and British missionaries and funded by the Rockefeller Foundation”, which bears no relationship to this article. (The same editor deleted the section and well-sourced content that TCM was not institutionalized until Mao, who came after 1906, so the editor knows this image bears no relationship to the article subject, as discussed elsewhere in this talk page).
    • An image of and caption of “Abraham Flexner, c. 1895. A critic of American higher education, he was appointed to lead the team commissioned by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching which produced the report published in 1910 recommending reform of American medical schools”, which bears no relationship to the article topic at all.
    • An image of and caption titled “European Pharmacopoeia 8th Edition. Its objective is to provide quality standards as part of regulatory requirements for a Marketing Authorisation Application (MAA) for a medicinal product”, which bears no relationship to the article topic.
    • An image of and caption “National Science Foundation building at Arlington, Virginia, for nearly all its workforce (about 1,700)”, the building image providing no information at all about the article topic, and violating WP:POINT given the editors removal of NSF as the source for the lead first sentence (discussed elsewere on this talk page).
    • An image of and caption “Randomized controlled trial flowchart”, which is making a WP:Point given the editor’s prior onslaught at the talk page (discussed elsewhere).
    • The editor's history of 569 edits to this article's talk page[114] shows an understanding of Wikipedia policies and guidelines.
    • In 323 edits, over time, the editor systematically removed longstanding consensus content and images, and replaced the images with clearly off-topic images having lengthy off-topic captions.
    • The editor's edit summaries made no mention of deleting entire long-standing consensus sections or images, despite the editor showing a clear understanding of edit summaries in 323 edits.
    • The editor's particular choices of off-topic images, mostly of off-topic science based medicine, or of clearly irrelevant images such as of Queen Victoria and her family, shows an intention at work.
    • When the editor's replacement of the ontopic images with offtopic images was undone, the editor contentiously argued against having any image or captions at all. (This is discussed, with examples, in other sections of this talk page).

    List of sources deleted by possible disruptive editing

    Collapse list of deleted reliable sources to improve readability of this talk page

    Cluster of footnotes - Does anyone know why a cluster of footnotes has appeared at the bottom of the page? Should they be moved or removed altogether? Qexigator (talk) 21:08, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

    They are the sources for content you deleted. This is being discussed in the section on a possibly disruptive editor. Other editors can look at the sources to determine if deleting them may be disruptive. It would be better if these showed in the section discussing disruptive editing. FloraWilde (talk) 21:56, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
    OK. In my view the catalogue of out of context back-edits you are compiling is misguided in more ways than one, and a waste of others' time. But you will no doubt wish to complete what you have started. It may be best to let some days pass before responding. Silence will not mean assent, so do not act too hastily, which seems to be your inclination. Qexigator (talk) 22:10, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

    These sources were deleted by possibly disruptive editing, as discussed in other sections. FloraWilde (talk) 16:22, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    1. ^ a b c d Sampson, W. (1995). "Antiscience Trends in the Rise of the "Alternative Medicine'Movement". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 775: 188–197. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1996.tb23138.x. PMID 8678416.
    2. ^ Carroll RT. "complementary medicine" at The Skeptic's Dictionary
    3. ^ Acupuncture Pseudoscience in the New England Journal of Medicine, Science Based Medicine, Steven Novella, Science-Based Medicine » Acupuncture Pseudoscience in the New England Journal of Medicine
    4. ^ a b Credulity about acupuncture infiltrates the New England Journal of Medicine, Science Based Medicine, David Gorski, Science-Based Medicine » Credulity about acupuncture infiltrates the New England Journal of Medicine
    5. ^ Sampson, Wallace (1 June 1995). "Antiscience trends in the rise of the "alternative medicine" movement". Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 775 (1): 189–191. doi:10.1111/j.1749-6632.1996.tb23138.x. Wallace Sampson
    6. ^ a b Beyerstein, BL (1996). "Traditional Medicine and Pseudoscience in China: A Report of the Second CSICOP Delegation (Part 1)". Skeptical Inquirer. 20 (4). Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
    7. ^ a b Celestial lancets: a history and rationale of acupuncture and moxa, Needham, J; Lu GD, 2002, Routledge, ISBN 0-7007-1458-8
    8. ^ Tongue Diagnosis in Chinese Medicine, G Cia, 1995, Eastland Press. ISBN 0-939616-19-X.
    9. ^ Camillia Matuk (2006). "Seeing the Body: The Divergence of Ancient Chinese and Western Medical Illustration" (PDF). Journal of Biocommunication. 32 (1).
    10. ^ Medieval Transmission of Alchemical and Chemical Ideas Between China and India, Vijay Deshpande, Indiana Journal of History of Science, 22 (1), pp. 15-28, 1987
    11. ^ Crozier RC (1968). Traditional medicine in modern China: science, nationalism, and the tensions of cultural change. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.[page needed]
    12. ^ Taylor, K (2005). Chinese Medicine in Early Communist China, 1945–63: a Medicine of Revolution. RoutledgeCurzon. ISBN 0-415-34512-X.
    13. ^ Ho, Peng Yoke (2000). Li, Qi, and Shu: An Introduction to Science and Civilization in China. Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-41445-0. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
    14. ^ Tongue Diagnosis in Chinese Medicine, G Cia, 1995, Eastland Press. ISBN 0-939616-19-X.
    15. ^ Scientists Speak Out Against Federal Funds for Research on Alternative Medicine – washingtonpost.com
    16. ^ a b Why the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) Should Be Defunded
    17. ^ Research Results of Complementary and Alternative Medicine [NCCAM Research]
    18. ^ "$2.5 billion spent, no alternative cures found – Alternative medicine- msnbc.com". MSNBC. June 10, 2009.
    19. ^ a b Brown, David (March 17, 2009). "Scientists Speak Out Against Federal Funds for Research on Alternative Medicine". Washingtonpost. Retrieved 2010-04-23.
    20. ^ Acupuncture Pseudoscience in the New England Journal of Medicine, Science Based Medicine, Steven Novella Science-Based Medicine » Acupuncture Pseudoscience in the New England Journal of Medicine
    21. ^ Cassileth BR (1999). "Evaluating complementary and alternative therapies for cancer patients". CA Cancer J Clin. 49 (6): 362–75. doi:10.3322/canjclin.49.6.362. PMID 11198952.
    22. ^ "Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Public Understanding Science Fiction and Pseudoscience - Belief in Alternative Medicine". National Science Foundation. alternative medicine refers to all treatments that have not been proven effective using scientific methods
    23. ^ National Science Foundation survey: Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Public Understanding. Science Fiction and Pseudoscience.
    24. ^ Beyerstein, B. L. (2001). "Alternative medicine and common errors of reasoning". Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges. 76 (3): 230–237. doi:10.1097/00001888-200103000-00009. PMID 11242572.
    25. ^ Other sources:
      • Nature Medicine, September 1996, Volume 2 Number 9, p1042
      • Pseudoscience and the Paranormal, Hines, Terence, American Psychological Association, [3]
      • The Need for Educational Reform in Teaching about Alternative Therapies, Journal of the Association of Medical Colleges, March 2001 - Volume 76 - Issue 3 - p 248-250
      • The Rise and Rise of Complementary and Alternative Medicine: a Sociological Perspective, Ian D Coulter and Evan M Willis, Medical Journal of Australia, 2004; 180 (11): 587-589
      • Ignore Growing Patient Interest in Alternative Medicine at Your Peril - MDs Warned, Heather Kent, Canadian Medical Association Journal, November 15, 1997 vol. 157 no. 10
      • The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, Carl Sagan, Random House, ISBN 0-394-53512-X, 1996
    26. ^ Ignore Growing Patient Interest in Alternative Medicine at Your Peril - MDs Warned, Heather Kent, Canadian Medical Association Journal, November 15, 1997 vol. 157 no. 10
    27. ^ Goldrosen MH, Straus SE. "Complementary and alternative medicine: assessing the evidence for immunological benefits." Nature Perspectives, November 2004 vol. 4, pp. 912-921.
    28. ^ "What is Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM)?". National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Archived from the original on 2005-12-08. Retrieved 2006-07-11. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
    29. ^ Zollman C, Vickers A (1999). [/ "ABC of complementary medicine What is complementary medicine?"]. British Medical Journal. 319 (693): 693. doi:10.1136/bmj.319.7211.693. {{cite journal}}: Check |url= value (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)
    30. ^ Cite error: The named reference IOM was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
    31. ^ "Traditional Medicine: Definitions". World Health Organization. 2000. Retrieved 2012-11-11.
    It seems highly inappropriate to remove these high quality (for the most part) references and related content without discussion (which may have occurred over time). Without some fruitful, policy based discussion this can/should/will probably lead to an ANI or EW filing. Let's show some patience, engage in policy based discussion and consensus building and avoid the drama boards. - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:20, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

    Check on recent text edits

    Comments above on possible disruptive edits call for examination. None of the recent edits were, in fact, disruptive, but editors may wish to consider whether or not any of them improve the article's encyclopedic content: Qexigator (talk) 10:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

    The above and the list were.... Qexigator (talk) 10:03, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

    ...In rebuttal of misguided supposition about "disruptive". Qexigator (talk) 19:37, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

    The following list is from the article history page[115] and is collapsed for readability of this talk page. FloraWilde (talk) 14:10, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    Collapse duplication of history page
    • Relman's remark, per article[116]
    • This is meant as no more than a minor copyedit for the current version of the lead, per Talk[117]
    • removed banal sentence that said alternative medicine is different to conventional[118]
    • grammar - add comma[119]
    • short statement for lead, not self-evident to the ordinary inquiring reader[120]
    • add sentence on criticism from info in body[121]
    • add info to criticism paragraph from article body[122]
    • add from info in body[123]
    • add from info in body[124]
    • remove recently added lead sentence that is not supported by the article body or by any reliable [source[125]
    • shorten info from article body added to lead, move regulation sentence according to due weight[126]
    • traditional medicine[127]
    • ---[128]
    • Classes and examples: rmv stray ref tag[129]
    • tweak[130]
    • top: refn[131]
    • References: display author param[132]
    • References: replace doi, rmv dead link tag, link was not dead, doi was inactive, fixed[133]
    • Examples: Adding/improving reference(s[134]
    • Adding/improving reference(s[135]
    • Adding/improving reference(s[136]
    • Adding/improving reference(s)[137]
    • ----[138]
    • Regional definitions: undo, may belong to another article[139]
    • restore to previous, suffices for lead[140]
    • Undid revision 618952685 by Qexigator, I think that belongs in lead per FRINGE take to talk[141]
    • Restore wording to previous version - All forms of faith healing and acupuncture are not traditional[142]
    • delete note defining "healing" per MrBill3 comment at talk[143]
    • remove quotation as WP:UNDUE[144]
    • examples[145]
    • WP:CHECKWIKI error fix #94. Stray ref tag. Do general fixes and cleanup if needed. - using AWB (10332))[146]
    • Proponents and opponents: scientific community etc)[147]
    • Proponents and opponents: rmv duplicating links[148]
    • Classes and examples: copyedit for clarity[149]
    • Classes and examples: add [citation needed] tag[150]
    • Dating maintenance tags: [citation needed])[151]
    • WP:CHECKWIKI error fix #94. Stray ref tag. Do general fixes and cleanup if needed. - using AWB [152]
    • restore deleted consensus sentence and sources to lead - see talk page[153]
    • Rescuing orphaned refs ("IOM" from rev 543554407[154]

    Qexigator (talk) 10:01, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

    This looks like a blanket dump of history. Without specifics and policy based argument what is the point? - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:23, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

    Collaborative editing

    Most regular editors will be aware that when an article is being built up or revised by a number of editors over a period of time, changes in the revisions will be made and unmade or modified as the revision evolves, with moves until a structure is settled, and later on it may be found that tweaks and copyedits are necessary. To characterise that as disruptive shows a complete failure to understand the process. Such changes are discussed and accepted or not as the process continues, as should be happening now with questions about the presentation of the images, as well as changes to text. Our concern should be to improve the article as best we may, acknowledging when a change of direction happens, such as the introduction of images. Qexigator (talk) 20:40, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

    A valid point. Input from other editors with a history of working on this article would help. Apologies for my previous haste, note my prior comments have been amended. - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:44, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
    FloraWilde if you really think this pattern of editing has removed valid content and sources you can restore that content and those sources. I would suggest piece by piece with clear edit summaries and a note for each on this talk page. As Quexigator has pointed out these changes occurred over a period of time and there was likely some discussion. I would suggestion careful consideration for each change you wish to restore and an examination of the talk archives for the discussion. If you seriously believe there has been a pattern of disruptive editing you can bring it to ANI. I suspect it would be dismissed as a content dispute, brought by an editor not involved in discussion and editing at the time of the changes which happened over a fairly extended period. Barring a filing I would urge you to focus on content rather than allegations or editor behavior. Well written, well sourced changes to content supported by policy based rationale are generally what is seen as demonstrating a desire to improve the encyclopedia. - - MrBill3 (talk) 17:24, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    Restore "Examples" subsections, with images, to top of article

    Examples, with subsections having brief summaries and illustrative images, should be at the top of the article. This gives a reader an immediate understanding of what alternative medicine actually is. Otherwise, a reader has to read through a mass of verbiage about theoretical efforts to classify alt med, about academic and scientific criticism (which may be justified), and may still have no idea what alt med actually is.

    (This section and subsections was once at the top by consensus. An editor then moved it down the article, in a series of possibly disruptive edits, then the subsections were deleted, all without consensus).

    It is tricky to try to keep the decriptions in brief text blocks, and at the same time have illustrative images next to them, when the images may be greater in size than the brief text blocks. Here is a proposal at a first attempt at doing this, culled from the article history, and organized roughly by the NCCAM classification system (which I do not agree with, as stated elsewhere).[155]

    Please feel free to make modifications to it. (Did I put it in a correct subpage sandbox for reworking?)FloraWilde (talk) 15:28, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    I'm not sure that "Qexigator has pointed out these changes occurred over a period of time and there was likely some discussion" makes Qexigator's blanket assertion true. Qexigator did not respond to any of the specific diffs on misleading edit summaries, on self-contradictory and thereby disruptive edits, on editing against talk page consensus with cited talk page sections in which other editors pointed out the edits were against consensus, or on massive block deletions in single edits, all with diffs.

    Moving forward - ["focus on content". A problem is that adding back in the entire section of examples, with subsections, cannot be done "piece by piece with clear edit summaries and a note for each on this talk page". Adding a section titled examples, with a single sentence of one example, would not improve the encyclopedia. I will instead try adding an example section with the deleted content, as minimally as possible. WP:Silence on my proposal indicates there may be no objection. FloraWilde (talk) 17:52, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
    It is because of the lack of response to the diffs provided I suggested starting to add back content. Perhaps piece by piece was not the right terminology. To rephrase in distinct edits with clear edit summaries and a related note on talk. The intent of my suggestion is that some changes may be supported by consensus while others not. Rather than having massive changes that would get reverted (with possible resulting EWing) performing changes in a series. Not sure how to break them into discrete individual edits, but I am not the one proposing the changes. If adding back an entire section is a specific proposal then let it proceed that way. I suspect there will be some contention and challenge so I would like the possibility of concise policy based argumentation of specific content. As above I support a return to the previous lead or something similar based on the sources provided. - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:01, 4 August 2014 (UTC)
    I added it back in as a section. It is unlikely to be controversial, especially since no article content was deleted, NCCAM is used for structure (which I disagree with, but am compromising on), and the wording is mostly either from the corresponding Wiki articles, or previous wording that appeared to be uncontested at the time it was added. FloraWilde (talk) 19:38, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    Images

    WP:RTP section collecting sections on discussions of images. FloraWilde (talk) 15:38, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    Why images?

    Two sets of images have recently been inserted in the article, the second set being used to exclude the first. The first set included a diagram Randomized controlled trial flowchart[156] in section "Efficacy", and in my view, of all the images in either set, that should be retained.

    Apart from that, of the two sets, the first (as at 18:03, 28 July 2014[157]) is certainly preferable for the reasons given in the discussion, which was rushed into the Archive. For the time being, and subject to further discussion, let the images of both sets (except the Flowchart) be omitted. 09:33, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    This is discussed in a section above. I restored to version by MrBill3 with image of chiropractic founder above paragraph where it is discussed. FloraWilde (talk) 13:55, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    Again, Why images?

    For no reason that I know of, my name was not added when this was posted, but that may be due to inadvertent 5th tilde

    Two sets of images have recently been inserted in the article, the second set being used to exclude the first. The first set included a diagram Randomized controlled trial flowchart[158] in section "Efficacy", and in my view, of all the images in either set, that should be retained.

    Apart from that, of the two sets, the first (as at 18:03, 28 July 2014[159]) is certainly preferable for the reasons given in the discussion, which was rushed into the Archive. For the time being, and subject to further discussion, let the images of both sets (except the Flowchart) be omitted. 09:33, 29 July 2014 (UTC) Qexigator (talk) 14:16, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    This is already being discussed in a section of this talk page above. Images of alternative medicine belong in this article. Images of Queen Victoria, the National Science Foundation building, Johns Hopkins University Medical School buildings, flow charts of scientific methods, etc., are not images of alternative medicine, so were deleted under WP:UNDUE. FloraWilde (talk) 14:41, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    Under discussion

    A related discussion is below, here. FloraWilde (talk) 18:01, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    I do not see the image question as yet resolved. The main points which emerged in discussion at "Proposal to have any images or non-text media in article"[160](extracts):

    Images do not necessarily improve an article, and may be no more than trivial clutter. In articles such as this, captions add no useful information, or tend to slant it either way. Images can be useful when showing such things as faces in articles about people, or buildings or artefacts, or copies of paintings. At most, an image for "Alternative medicine" generically may be acceptable. This article was improved when those non-informative images were removed. They can be seen at the pages linked to the specific articles, which is where the caption information belongs. Maybe something like the images at the following sites could add a graphic overview of the topic.

    Qexigator (talk) 08:08, 3 July 2014 (UTC) ...

    I think some of the images suggested by Qexigator warrant consideration. I tend to agree the images removed served little purpose. I think in general images improve articles but need careful consideration of encyclopedic nature and value. - - MrBill3 (talk) 09:32, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

    ...I am still a proponent of inserting images for the sake of having images even if they only have narrow relevance and are not as good as non-free content. I have a lot of sympathy for encyclopedia users who need to see non-text media in articles to have a good experience, and even if the images above are not ideal, I take the position that some mediocre images are better than having no images. Captions can be cut or say anything. Others may disagree with me, but I expect that much of Wikipedia errs on the side of having some images in articles. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:46, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

    Experienced editors will be mindful that the focus and priority in this type of article is the communication of information about the topic, as reliably as can be, not inserting images for the sake of providing "a good experience" according some other irrelevant criteria. There are now two inset images, at least one of which could be seen as relevant to the actual topic (though neither is strictly needed), and links to others which are of a type that could usefully be added to the article if available at Commons.[161] --Qexigator (talk) 17:27, 3 July 2014 (UTC)....

    Given that, for various reasons, the images so far put on this page for comment are not acceptable, and nothing else suitable has been found at Wikimedia Commons, we seem to be waiting for one of the linked images to become available from there, such as the Nature pictorial diagram for CAM domains and some of the most common examples[162] currently in the "External link" section, and/or the FDA notice about Ayurvedic products linked at the end of the the article's "Use and regulation" section, or something better than either of those, and in any case which is consistent with the written text and free from unsourced speculation. Qexigator (talk) 18:42, 5 July 2014 (UTC)

    • The Nature image is copyrighted, but I have seen many images like it and one could be produced by an editor here if they so desire bearing in mind that original research guidelines are less strict for images(WP:OI). I would view similar diagrams for inspiration, and try to produce an original diagram for use in this article.AioftheStorm (talk) 02:53, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

    At this stage, SET ONE was added:

    Images for "Terms...", "History...", "Examples", etc.

    The version at 15:39, 7 July 2014[163] has an image supporting the text in "Terms and definitions", four more in "History – 19th century onwards", and one in "Examples". Qexigator (talk) 15:51, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

    Update: now,[164] 1 in "Terms and definitions", 3 in "History – 19th century onwards", and 3 in "Classes and examples". Qexigator (talk) 19:17, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
    + 2 in "Regional definitions" - may need adjustment for size? Qexigator (talk) 22:08, 7 July 2014 (UTC)
    + and 1 in "Efficacy".[165]. --Qexigator (talk) 22:32, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

    The score as at 22:16, 8 July 2014[166] Terms and definitions: 1. Regional definitions: 2. Institutions: 1. History: 4. Classes and examples: 3. Criticism: 1. Use and regulation: 1. Efficacy: 1. Appeal: 1. Qexigator (talk) 22:29, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

    +1 more in "Terms and definitions" with caption about comparative extent of use of "alternative medicine" in hospitals. Qexigator (talk) 15:37, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

    Reflection on pictures added

    I am happy with the inclusion of pictures in this article as it is now. I understand that pictures are not necessarily an improvement for all people, but I advocate for an audience that wants health information and likes to see pictures even if they are only marginally relevant. I appreciate everyone who has responded to my request to include pictures in this article.

    I only say that these pictures are good enough, and not that they are the best. If it in the future anyone wants to add or change pictures, then there can be discussion about whether that is an improvement. If I were to offer suggestions for improvement, I would wish for more diversity in what is depicted. Here are some things I wish that I could see here:

    • a graphic representing various kinds of alternative medicine, as in this copyrighted Nature illustration
    • pictures of women who contributed to alternative medicine
    • images showing alternative medicine outside a Western context
    • more depiction emphasizing complementary medicine, or the integration of alternative and conventional medicine
    • anything suggesting the narrative of how alternative medicine becomes conventional medicine as it is shown to be effective, or proving how this has happened in the past

    Thanks again everyone. I think this article had a great reworking and I like this version. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:53, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

    Please note that the images are consistent with the fact that "One common feature of all definitions of alternative medicine is its designation as 'other than' conventional medicine." Can you identify any woman who has notably influenced the formation of what has come to be known as "western medicine" on a par with the influence of the men whose images now appear in the article? Or who has been founder of one of the main forms of alternative medicine in the same period? Your other points seem to confirm a previously expressed lack of reading the text of the article, but perhaps you now feel some further information should be reported in it, which can be properly sourced. We should not be treating this article if it were a commentary on a picture book. Qexigator (talk) 16:59, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
    Qexigator Thanks for proposing so many excellent illustrations in response to my asking. I am flattered by the enthusiasm you have shown in meeting my request because I know it took a lot of time to do what you did.
    You fairly describe my position when you say, "treating this article as if it were a commentary on a picture book", as I am doing exactly that and openly acknowledge it and say that it is good to do so. If you choose to continue to engage with me, expect me to maintain that position. Please forgive me if my position does not please you, and thanks at least for finding compromise with me. I believe - acknowledging that many others might not - that including the most relevant pictures even if they are not highly relevant inherently makes Wikipedia more encyclopedic. I am happy with the pictures you added and am thinking of stepping away from the article for maybe a long while, to see if anyone else has comments.
    "Alternative medicine" may be other than "conventional medicine" but "complementary and alternative medicine" may not be. Also there are times in history when the divisions between alternative and conventional medicine did not exist. There is room for talking about both, as when you suggested mentioning how nurses may administer both conventional and alternative medicine. Many or perhaps most people use both alternative and conventional medicine simultaneously without thinking of a difference, and I hope this article reflects whatever sources say about this.
    Mary Baker Eddy comes to mind as a great and respectable woman in the field of alternative medicine who has had influence comparable to or exceeding the men pictured, as her work is still one of the world's most influential health texts. Mother Teresa also promoted spiritual healing in circumstances which she knew conflicted with conventional medicine, and Kolkata and wider India today still follow the recommendations she made. I know nothing about alternative medicine in China, India, Africa, Russia, South America, or other places outside Western culture. Maybe someday someone else could recommend other candidates; just one significant personality in either India or China would equal the influence of the entire Western world.
    Sorry for any tension I may have created between us. You have done more than I should ever expect to accommodate me, and I appreciate that. Blue Rasberry (talk) 21:31, 9 July 2014 (UTC)
    Eddy (irrespective of her being a woman) is notable as having advocated a form of piety or religious devotion, conduct and behaviour which amounts to abstaining in principle from medical treatment of any kind, conventional or alternative. Qexigator (talk) 23:46, 9 July 2014 (UTC) ....
    Note that the principle of her teaching is abstention from medical treatment of any description, and this article would not be improved by reporting or implying otherwise:...Qexigator (talk) 09:52, 10 July 2014 (UTC)...

    Noting that this page is "for discussing improvements to the Alternative medicine article", let it suffice to say that such merits and conduct as hers may excite in many respect or veneration, but that does not surmount the objection to her inclusion in the article. Qexigator (talk) 15:37, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

    Qexigator's image suggestions at the top of this section (or something similar) are informative so are very good.
    Here are some other informative images available at Wikimedia Commons -
    • Energy fields for maximum health[167]
    • Chakras used in healing[168]
    • More chakras used in healing[169]

    Modern Mid-Asian traditional doctor with tools

    • Historic photo of Ghana medicine man (possibly for history section)[170]
    • Philippines pyramid built for focusing healing energy[171]
    • Mid-Asian traditional healer with healing tools[172] FloraWilde (talk) 18:39, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    Fresh Images Discussion

    I realize there are possibly (probably) relevant prior discussions. I'd like to try to work forward from where we are now. I think the image set at this time is fairly good. If someone wants to present an argument for specific images to be restored/added/removed (or captions changed) might I suggest doing so in this thread. I think Hahnemann and Palmer could be argued for. - - MrBill3 (talk) 17:08, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    Images of actual alternative medicine as practiced are informative to the Wikipedia user, and greatly add to the user's understanding of what alternative medicine is. A historic photograph of alt med being practiced in the 1800's would be great for the history section, but images of Hahnemann and Palmer posing for a portrait should be in the specialized article - History of alternative medicine, by WP:UNDUE. By WP:UNDUE, additional of images should be of alternative medicine being practiced, or images that give actual information about alt med. An image of an important historical figure actually practicing the alt med would be very good in this article. FloraWilde (talk) 18:04, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
    As always in this kind of thing it's a question of (ecyclopedic) editorial judgment, npov, not pushing an agenda, and as far as possible, free from pet enthusiasms (rather dull, perhaps). I am not persuaded that the present set of images improves the article, and seeing them on the page confirms my reservations.
    My present position remains as before: Images do not necessarily improve an article, and may be no more than trivial clutter. In articles such as this, captions may add no useful information, or may slant it either way. Images can be useful when showing such things as faces in articles about people, or buildings or artefacts, or copies of paintings.
    This article was improved some time ago when certain non-informative images, like those now there, were removed. They can be seen at the pages linked to the specific articles, which is where the caption information belongs.
    At most, an image for "Alternative medicine" generically may be acceptable. Maybe something like the images at the following sites could add a graphic overview of the topic,
    Qexigator (talk) 18:13, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
    All of Qexigator's suggested images would be informative to a Wiki user. Are they copyright protected? FloraWilde (talk) 18:37, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
    Unless on Commons, how can we use them? That's why the connection is by link. Qexigator (talk) 18:41, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
    But, if not overlarge, the present set of images may help to show at a glance something of the wide range and variety encompassed by the general descriptive words "alternative medicine", which, unlike conventional/mainstream, is not a single unified entity: as the article says, there is "medicine", and there is everything else not regarded as such by the practitioners of "medicine". Qexigator (talk) 19:15, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
    Were the images for the selected examples of AM arranged in any particular order? It looks somewhat random. Qexigator (talk) 22:46, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
    I like some of the images at the links given but if not usable on WP...? I share some concern about the captions. I think the existing images might be more deliberately placed. - - MrBill3 (talk) 08:19, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
    more deliberately placed... would that be by separating the ones now under the infobox and placing them against a piece of text in the sections? I feel that would loose something which I now see keeping them together gains (mentioned in Afterthought under "Better presentation of the images" below). There is also a possibility of putting them in a Gallery, as mentioned below, but that, too, though keeping them together, would loose what the present arrangement has. Qexigator (talk) 08:46, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
    I now see your comment of 8.32 below. Qexigator (talk) 08:53, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

    Better presentation of the images

    Edits intended to improve the presentation of the information in the article, and in particular the images, should not be miscalled "damaging", and merely reverted. That is not helping to improve the article. Qexigator (talk) 21:39, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    Please stop trying to delete or damage criticism material. Does that mean that the images are being put there as "criticism material"? Qexigator (talk) 21:50, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    Afterthought: Having the "miracle cure" image at the top of the column of images seems a suitable presentation as a header for such of the images as represent use of preparations and doses of one kind or another, and those which use various forms of bodily contact, in ways which, if the patient's health recovers or improves or stabilises could, from a scientific point of view, loosely be called "miraculous". Could the images, then, be grouped as those which relate to products and the others which relate to contact? But, subject to other's comments, I would be inclined to let them stay in the order they have been given as now. Qexigator (talk) 05:58, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

    Screen size

    When formatting images, it's helpful to remember that the page may appear differently to a reader, depending on screen width. Qexigator (talk) 22:58, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    Gallery?

    A suggestion made in the earlier discussion, now archived, was that the images, such as those now ranged down the right margin of the page under the infobox, could be presented instead as a gallery. On balance, I favour the right margin as now, but others may prefer a gallery. Any comment? Qexigator (talk) 23:16, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

    I prefer the right margin. I would like to see deliberate placement. A gallery as an addition might be OK but a EL to the commons probably takes care of that unless there is a specific set of images deemed very appropriate for the article. - - MrBill3 (talk) 08:32, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
    There is also the white space alongside the TOC, which the column-wise arrangement (as now) uses. Qexigator (talk) 09:10, 30 July 2014 (UTC)
    Right margin. Equal size. Order roughly according to prevalence of use among English language Wikipedia users. Criticism at the end as in lead section organization. FloraWilde (talk) 19:34, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
    Subject to others' comments, Right margin - agreed; Equal size - agreed; Order roughly according to prevalence of use among English language Wikipedia users - seems as good as any sequence; Criticism at the end as in lead section organization - perhaps. Qexigator (talk) 19:55, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
    What we have now seems like a right margin gallery. I would like to see images placed along side the content they apply to. - - MrBill3 (talk) 19:03, 2 August 2014 (UTC)
    The images were previously next to an example section at the top of the article.[173] I tried restoring the examples and aligning the images next to the content, but it is not working since the block of text for example section may be shorter or longer than the image, causing misalignment of all of the rest of the images. The text blocks can be expected to be in a constant state of flux, causing future alligment to be completely lost. Here is one attempt at restoring the examples (and sources), and then placement of images next to the text.[174] The current arrangement, with images in a right hand column from the top down, might be better than this attempt, since any aligment will likely be lost with future article edits. FloraWilde (talk) 22:22, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

    Recent edits, future images

    Changes have recently made to the lead, and the position of the first sections "Background" and "History – 19th century onwards" which depart from the long-standing version as at as at 22:41, 31 July 2014.[175]

    The lead, structure and text stabilised had been stablised, with some copyedits and tweaks thereafter, until 26 July [176], as a result of an earlier revision process (involving a number of editors) pretty much at the point when MrBill3's overhaul of the refs was getting under way in mid-September 2013[177], and goes as far as back as March 2013[178], if not before.

    The ongoing process of editing to improve the article was affected by a misguided attempt to claim that certain edits were "disruptive", which demonstrably was in error.[179]

    But the recent series of edits, made by one newly intervening editor, has turned the previously stable article, written and set out in an encyclopedic style and character, into something which tends to look more in the style and character of a soapboxish rant aimed, perhaps, at satisfying a section of the American readership.[180] Those edits were preceded by the flurry about banning "disruptive" editing introduced here[181], considered here[182] and here,[183] and continued here[184], here[185], here[186],[187], here[188] etc., and including a falsehood (maybe inadvertent) about the lead here[189]

    That has been a needless and unwarranted distraction from the ongoing process of edits aimed at improving the article.[190][191] It was attended by a series of moves of content on this page, alteration of headings,such as here[192], or here,[193] insertions of Headings, such as [194], and collapses, such as [195][196] (and sometimes uncollapsing), which has interefered with the accurate presentation of the way the discussion has developed. Are we to suppose that was due simply to brash ignorance, or perhaps a tactical move with combative intent?

    This can be seen as particularly significant, seeing that it was done in connection with an unfounded attack on the present contributor, none of whose edits or contributions can properly be described as disruptive, whether or not some have later been removed in the normal process of development, coupled with an attack on NCAAM for its political position under the title "Is NCCAM WP:RS on anthropological or sociology statements?", commenting: Without apparent anthropological or sociological expertise, NCCAM, a political body, invented a nonsense "classification" scheme for the anthropological and sociological phenomenon called alternative medicine, of which it is a part. It used this in getting funding for testing of things like manipulation of supernatural "energy fields" to "heal". The title has been changed to "Is NCCAM WP:RS on physics, anthropology, sociology, and theology?" and the content revised.

    None of the other recent edits which were said to be disruptive were so in fact, nor were any of those cited from the past, as can be acknowledged by any one who was involved in the editing at that time, and can be seen by anyone prepared to look at the edits in sequence in the context of the ongoing edits and Talk page discussions. Reasoned and reasonable discussion on the Talk page in respect of any of such edit that was thought not to be an improvement would be the way to make progress, without yelling "disruptive".

    In particular, the use of images in principle, and where images would be placed for the better information of inquiring readers, involve questions about which some discussion has started, but has not yet been sufficiently explored for anyone to claim a consensus has been reached in support of what any one person editing here may favour. When some calm and reason has been restored, it may be possible to resume the ongoing process of editing the article for its improvement in the normal way. Qexigator (talk) 20:13, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

    Images have information and are useful to encyclopedia users. As shown in diffs above, Qexigator massively removed on-topic images of examples, and replaced them with off-topic images, such as of the family of Queen Victoria. That is disruptive. Please stop. FloraWilde (talk) 21:08, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
    That comment, and others, seem to confirm that the maker of it has not yet sufficiently understood the process of collaborative npov editing and taking account of others' views in the course of discussion. Qexigator (talk) 21:32, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
    How is your deleting all of the images of alternative medicine practices, and replacing them with off-topic images, such as an image of Queen Victoria and her family, part of "the process of collaborative npov editing"? FloraWilde (talk) 23:08, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

    New section, editing process affecting the lead, and Background and History sections

    Changes have recently made to the lead, and first sections "Background" and "History – 19th century onwards" which depart from the long-standing version as at as at 22:41, 31 July 2014.[197]

    The lead, structure and text had been stablised, with some copyedits and tweaks thereafter, until 26 July [198], as a result of an earlier revision process (involving a number of editors) pretty much at the point when MrBill3's overhaul of the refs was getting under way in mid-September 2013[199], and goes back as far as back as March 2013[200], if not before.

    The ongoing process of editing to improve the article was affected by a misguided attempt to claim that certain edits were "disruptive", which demonstrably was in error.[201]

    But the recent series of edits, made by one newly intervening editor, has turned the previously stable article, written and set out in an encyclopedic style and character, into something which looks more in the style and character of a soapboxish rant aimed, perhaps, at satisfying a section of the American readership.[202] Those edits were preceded by the flurry about banning "disruptive" editing introduced here[203], considered here[204] and here,[205] and continued here[206], here[207], here[208],[209], here[210] etc., and including a falsehood (maybe inadvertent) about the lead here[211]

    That has been a needless and unwarranted distraction from the ongoing process of edits aimed at improving the article.[212][213] It was attended by a series of moves of content on this page, alteration of Headings,such as here[214], or here,[215] insertions of Headings, such as [216], and collapses, such as [217][218] (and sometimes uncollapsing), which has interefered with the accurate presentation of the way the discussion has developed. Are we to suppose that was due simply to brash ignorance, or perhaps a tactical move with combative intent?

    This can be seen as particularly significant, seeing that it was done in connection with an unfounded attack on the present contributor, none of whose edits or contributions can properly be described as disruptive, whether or not some have later been removed in the normal process of development, coupled with an attack on NCAAM for its political position under the title "Is NCCAM WP:RS on anthropological or sociology statements?", commenting: Without apparent anthropological or sociological expertise, NCCAM, a political body, invented a nonsense "classification" scheme for the anthropological and sociological phenomenon called alternative medicine, of which it is a part. It used this in getting funding for testing of things like manipulation of supernatural "energy fields" to "heal". The title has been changed to "Is NCCAM WP:RS on physics, anthropology, sociology, and theology?" and the content revised.

    None of the other recent edits which were said to be disruptive were so in fact, nor were any of those cited from the past, as can be acknowledged by any one who was involved in the editing at that time, and can be seen by anyone prepared to look at the edits in sequence in the context of the ongoing edits and Talk page discussions. Reasoned and reasonable discussion on the Talk page in respect of any of such edit that was thought not to be an improvement would be the way to make progress, without yelling "disruptive". Qexigator (talk) 20:40, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

    Examples with images provides useful information to the user. As shown in the diffs above, User:Qexigator removed reliably sourced consensus content from the lead, and massively removed entire sections of examples and the very reliable sources for their content. That is disruptive. Please stop. FloraWilde (talk) 21:46, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

    RTP

    To improve readability, I did a WP:RTP by collecting sections on similar topics as subsections of a single topic, and collapsing (mostly my own) sections.[219] FloraWilde (talk) 1 6:49, 4 August 2014 (UTC)

    You should try and resist the temptation to overdo "RTP", especially when affecting the presentation of points you are seeking to promote here, and the comments of others who may have other views which should be left open for discussion by others. Qexigator (talk) 20:57, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
    @Qexigator - Please stop creating new sections on topics already discussed in other sections. This is disruptive. FloraWilde (talk) 21:05, 10 August 2014 (UTC)
    Actually, it would be helpful if you would not keep moving contibutions about to suit your idea of RTP. Qexigator (talk) 21:43, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

    Ayurveda in America

    Ayurveda seems to excite notable interest and some controversy. Editors here may be aware that there is a proposal for merging Ayurveda in America into Ayurveda#History. There is support and it may happen soonish. Meantime, Ayurveda links to it, and to Alternative medicine. I have added there a See also link to History of alternative medicine. I am not proposing to edit those articles but some careful trimming would do no harm. I have added to the "Ayurvedic medicine" medicine sub- sub-section here an in line link to Ayurveda in America, but maybe the link would be better as a "See also". Qexigator (talk) 10:57, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

    No. FloraWilde (talk) 16:43, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

    Why are subsections on definitions and terminology under a section header called "background"?

    Why are subsections on definitions and terminology under a section header called "background"? The section header should be changed from "background" to "definitions and terminology". FloraWilde (talk) 02:36, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

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