Alternative medicine

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Alternative medicine comprises practices that aim to achieve the healing effects of medicine, but that lack biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or supporting evidence of effectiveness. Such practices are not part of mainstream evidence-based medicine. Unlike modern medicine, which employs the scientific method to test plausible therapies by way of responsible and ethical clinical trials, producing repeatable evidence of either effect or of no effect, alternative therapies are not products of the scientific method, but instead rely on testimonials, anecdotes, religion, tradition, superstition, belief in supernatural "energies", pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, fraud, or other unscientific sources. Alternative medicine practices are also called New Age medicine, pseudo-medicine, unorthodox medicine, holistic medicine, fringe medicine, functional medicine, and unconventional medicine, with little distinction from quackery. Some alternative practices are based...

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