Where was the last place you traveled to? How did you enjoy your stay there?

@AmbivalentFriability Given the propensity for people to make a buck off of other people's tragedies, I'm pretty skeptical of alternative medicines. Homeopathy in particular has been proven ineffective so many times that the government here actually requires those remedies to state that they haven't proven effective. Too many people were dying or complicating their illnesses by choosing that path to wellness

That's the thing about medicine though. Pills and treatments have to undergo rigorous testing and evaluation processes for them to ever make it to the market. You need control groups and large sample sizes to make sure you're selling something that does what it says it does.

With alternative medicines, that process isn't required. You can basically just say that it cures a certain thing without any evidence behind it. It's makes it really difficult to verify that the treatments are actually effective. For all you know, they could be taking you for a ride. Sometimes the line between being open-minded and being gullible isn't so clear

@SW-User
I understand what you're saying. With my experiences I'm more inclined to agree than to not. But I think I'm never going to completely discount natural medicine and it's potential. I guess my experiences are both a source of doubt and some kind of belief in it.

Just for the sake of clarity (and my own peace of mind :p), what I mean with "open-minded" is more just being open to having your way of thinking challenged in general, not necessarily just with what we're talking about here.
That being said, critical thinking is a virtue.
I'm sure you understood that, but I can't seem to help my tendency to over explain (usually pointlessly and unhelpfully) sometimes. :| Potential misunderstandings have been the bane of my interactions with people.

@AmbivalentFriability I can respect being open to natural medicines. There is history behind at least certain remedies. They might not have gone through clinical trials, but lots of trial and error from pre-medicine days are good enough. It's just without having some kind of solid evidence, it's hard to put your faith in something like that.

It seems like too much of the proof for those cures is reliant on confirmation bias or post hoc fallacy. It ignores the role of the immune system or the placebo effect curing certain ailments on their own and overemphasizes the role of whatever medicines they prescribed. It's why the FDA always uses control groups.

Plus, when businesses want to sell magic toxin-absorbing socks or energy-boosting wrist bands, they rely on vaguely scientific jargon to market their products without really getting into the hows and the whys.

Anyways, I'm going on way too long about this. I just think most businesses lack the integrity they should and rely on half-truths and misinformation to turn a profit. That kinda stuff bothers me. I can't speak to the validity of every single natural medicine, but I've seen enough false claims from that camp to warrant casting a blanket of doubt on the field until I can see otherwise.