Alternative medicine is popular. Although the evidence base for alternative medicines is generally weak to non-existent, there's a ready market for it. So, if people want it, wouldn't it be a good idea to train the practitioners properly (i.e. to degree level) and introduce regulation?
Link: http://www.dcscience.net/?p=2043
Well, some universities are offering Bachelor of Science (!) degrees in things like Traditional Chinese Medicine and homeopathy already and it has been proposed that a regulatory body be set up to regulate the practitioners. Is this a good thing?
Well, it really depends on what you're teaching and how you regulate it!
The theories behind most alternative medicines are ludicrous and have nothing at all to do with the scientific understanding of physiology, disease, and its diagnosis. So, if universities are offering degrees but are actually teaching things like vitalism, sympathetic magic and the mythology behind alternative medicine then they are simply giving credence to mumbo jumbo. A degree in mumbo jumbo is a meaningless qualification - it's still mumbo jumbo; but consumers trust such credentials and this could be dangerous.
There are excellent examples of the sort of stupidity taught on these degrees on Prof. David Colquhoun's blog linked to above. It also explains the dangers in accepting this nonsense as being real.
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