Again, it is this capacity for disproof that characterizes scientific medicine. By our definition Homeopathy, Iridology, Crystal Healing, Therapeutic Touch, and much of Chiropractic, are at the extreme end of the non-scientific spectrum. The use of Human Growth Hormone to slow aging, and the prescription of antibiotics for viral syndromes, are alternative, non-scientific, therapies. Herbalism is a more interesting case, and it is to Herbalism and Homeopathy that we will return. Three hundred years ago, Francis Bacon developed an empirical philosophy as a reaction to the scholarship of antiquity and the folk knowledge of the day.
Science is characterized by a questioning of common sense and sentiment.
It relies on observation and testable predictions, not on authority alone. Science is most profoundly about disproof. Disproof can be deeply unpopular, and science is not always loved. It is a hard thing to see a cherished belief crushed and discarded, to learn that the universe does not agree with us. Newton's physics lives on, but his alchemy is dust.