Alternative medicine is better than Western medicine

Affirmative Round 2Thats the spirit, pain all around. I just realised you were new to the site so it was rude of me to enter this debate with the explcit purpose of trying to make you lose... Meh. Just to let you know, it is frowned upon to make debates which gaurenttee you an easy win.Before I start, I recognise Con's structure, and must conclude that he/she has experience is debating in real life, where you speak instead of typing. The problem is that speeches lack everything a written debate needs, like coherency, lay-out and sources. I would recommend reading debates first before making them.Defence of the Affirmative Case:I recognise 3 objections Con has played against my case, I will state the parts of my arguments that were attacked in bold and then explain Con's rebuttal underneath and a rebuttal underneath that. That way, everyone wins except for me.1. Conventional medicine is not as desirable as Alternative medicine.Con's Objection: People often don"t know what is good for them. People feel obliged because they know that it is good for them. Besides, for small things like headaches, colds, flu's, it's probably better to go to your nearest doctor, get an antibiotic and save yourself considering that alternative medicine isn't a quick fix, it's something you have to be patient with.There are a few things that are wrong with Con's argument: "People don't often know what is good for them," is purely irrelevant. If someone wanted to wash their face in a pond to cure a foot sore, we have no right to comment. For that person, whichever method he/she wants is better for him. To say that one person can choose what is better for everyone is to assume Con has already won the debate, which is not true. People feel obliged because they know that it is good for them. This sentence contradicts the one that came before it. But anyways, its false never-the-less. People feel obliged not because they know it to be true, no one knows medicine to work with 100% success, instead, people go to the doctor because they either think it will make them better, or because everyone else does that. The socio-cultural interferences in our everyday decision making is so great that there is even a perspective of psychology dedicated to it. [1] it's probably better to go to your nearest doctor Unfounded claim, unsupported, unsourced, unjustified, not cited, ungrounded, not founded and not at all in support of your case. So that was the entire Pro objection in 3 sentences. The gist of the affirmative argument here was that patients -even though they don't know it, and even though they do know it- would take Conventional medicine because it is better for them. This objection is as a whole, invalid due to its illigitimancy in pre-suppossing that the motion is negated.2. Alternative medicine is prefered due to relative low cost compared to conventional Medicine.My opponent's only objection to this argument is that there are exceptions to the rule. I agree. But the argument still stands.3. A patient who wants to live has better chances of survival as opposed to one that doesn't.Again, Con assumes the resolution is defeated in order to make her claims. Con says: 'If they don"t have the right treatment they won't get better.' What, may I ask, is the right treatment? It's Alternative medicine, definitely. Because alternative medicine takes so long to take effect, it would take quite a long time to be able to find out if your treatment was the correct one, whereas with conventional medicine it wouldn't take so long. So here we see an actual argument being made by Con. However, its not sourced etc. Putting that aside, let's investigate why the claim is wrong. To start, Con thinks that alternative medicine takes a long time to take effect. To disprove this, go get acupuncture and see how you feel. It's not that slow is it? That basically undermines the entire argument, so I'll leave it at that. Well, ladies and gents, that was all that was attacked by Con, please notice the lack of success in the negative objections. Moving on to my rebuttals now, Con makes 2 points, 1 of them is simply subjective, the other is irrelevant. Deconstruction of the Negative Case:Objection 1: Alternative medicine takes too long. Depeding on what type of CAM you use, it would be suprising to know that results start as soon as the method is implimented, chiropractors move bones into place, massages relax muscles, Meditation calms the mind. The contention that is raised by Con occurrs because it is well known that people who start a CAM won't stop for a very long time. You don't have to be sick to take CAM.Objection 2: Alternative medicine carries with it some risk. What Con forgot to point out was how this arguments supports the resolution. Saying that a certain method of medicine is risky does not make it less better as that assumes a definition of 'better,' different to the one already agreed upon in the debate. Furthermore, This argument is self defeating. As with a previous Con point, the first sentence disagrees with the second: Alternative medicine carries with it some risk. vs not all of them have been studied regarding whether or not they are safe How does Con know that they bear negative risk if no one knows if they can even cause harm? To be fair, stepping into the unknown is a form of risk, but the risk in question is safety risk. If Con can provide an example of a potentially dangerous CAM, I will concede this point. When one sits back and thinks about it however, it is easy to realise that I won't need to concede anything, as methods like meditation and acupuncture are not at all dangerous.On the contrary, it is actually medicine we should be worried about, as mis-perscribed or abuse of artificial drugs may kill you. [Source: see medicine bottle lids] To illustrate the outstanding safeness of CAM, I will explain the lack of danger present in each of the most commonly used CAM methods. http://nccam.nih.gov...The most common CAM is natural products, crushing leaves to make a soap is harmless.Next is deep breathing. Harmless? NOOooOOo. You see, its completely harmless.Meditation, harmlessChiropractic, sometimes uncomfortable, but harmless.Massages, pleasant and harmless.Yoga, fun and harmlessDiets, controlled eating is harmlessProgressive relaxation, harmlessGuided imagry, harmless homeopathic treatment. I personally do not believe this to be possible, but harmless never-the-less (where someone focuses their mind's energy on healing a disease) I didn't really have to point out why most of these methods are completely harmless. So to Conclude:Alternative medicine is better than Western medicine.Source:[1]http://healthandfitnessbay.blogspot.com.au...;