Category talk:Alternative medicine

message: The criteria for using :category:pseudoscience are given at WP:FRINGE/PS:  "obvious pseudoscience" (i.e. obscure tiny-minority things like Time Cube, or "generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community" (i.e., well-known topics that have attracted commentary by scientific bodies, like astrology).  While some alt-med's qualify as such, not all do, and I don't know of any reliable source that says the entire field of alt-med, or CAM, is generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community.  Please also see WP:RS#Claims_of_consensus, which clarifies that "claims of consensus must be sourced".  I welcome efforts to locate and include such a source, but till then, WP's NPOV policy is clear that the category doesn't belong here. --Jim Butler (t) 18:32, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Not all of astrology is pseudoscience either... it's just generally pseudoscience. The reliable sources which discuss alt med. all agree as long as they aren't written by alt med proponents. Therefore the category is appropriate and has been restored PER WP:FRINGE/PS. ScienceApologist (talk) 01:37, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  Per WP:FRINGE/PS, Alternative Medicine is not an obvious pseudoscience. Nor is it generally considered pseudoscience. It's not even something masquerading as science. It's not something which can be labeled scientific or pseudoscientific. Why not? Because it is merely a category; a descriptive term when incorporates many forms of healing outside the mainstream. If you are going to label "Alt Med" pseudoscience, then you would be effectively labeling all of its member pseudoscience. And we know that not to be the case. After all, following that logic we could say that since Alt Med falls under the category Medicine and Alt Med has some pseudoscienctific disciplines contained within, then we could also label Medicine pseudoscience because it therefore contains some pseudoscientific disciplines with it. No? If you need to label, label the individual disciplines and not the overarching category where it only sometimes applies. -- Levine2112 discuss 04:18, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with Levine2112 that WP:FRINGE/PS would prohibit the alternative medicine article or category from being classified under the Pseudoscience category. The association is strong, but not universal enough to warrant inclusion. It's a very different matter for the individual articles in the altmed category, since many of them would properly, according to WP:FRINGE/PS, be classed as pseudoscientific. -- Fyslee / talk 14:16, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text:  What a relief, I get to argue against categorization of something as pseudoscience. Broad swaths of alternative medicine qualify to one extent or another, but as long as diet, exercise, and vitamin supplementation are claimed by the movement (and, more importantly, described as "alternative" by reliable sources), it would seem inappropriate to use :Category:Pseudoscience. - Eldereft (cont.) 14:29, 16 July 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: There is strong consensus here that it should not be classified as "Pseudoscience". I too agree with this. Hence I replaced the cat by "fringe science".Biophys (talk) 15:10, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Now I realize that assigning this to "fringe science" was also incorrect. This is simply not science.Biophys (talk) 15:21, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Wow! This is a blast from the past. Above (my old username was Fyslee) I even agreed not to use the PSI category here or on the article and it was effected immediately. I didn't realize that in May 2010 it was restored and you were just fixing that situation, so I'll self-revert to your version. Thanks for catching it. Now what? -- Brangifer (talk) 16:11, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  I whole-heartedly agree with Eldereft; such a sensible bloke, that. - 2/0 (cont.) 20:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  LOL! -- Brangifer (talk) 20:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

text: Yes, let's remove it from fringe science. Certain sub-cats and articles maybe belong to fringe science (those funded by the NIH), but not shamanism and things like that. Same probably with Holism.Biophys (talk) 17:11, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  :Category:Traditional medicine makes sense in some ways, but that is currently a subcategory of this, which I think works better. This leaves the categorization of this category a bit sparse, but I am not sure that that is a problem. :Category:Health movements might apply as long as it does not imply central organization or unanimity on all points. - 2/0 (cont.) 20:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  That sounds like a pretty good category to use instead of the others. Let's try it. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Done. Biophys or anyone, just revert if we need more discussion. - 2/0 (cont.) 21:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Not [[:category:pseudoscience]] again

message: Done. Now we have Category:Alternative medicine under Holism | Medicine | New Age practices | Fringe science. Since alternative medicine is a collection of widely diverse practices that belong in many different categories, what's the best approach? Since they claim to be "alternatives" to medicine, they belong as a subcategory under medicine, so that's correct. Not all are holistic, new age, fringe science, or pseudoscience (just removed). Should we remove this category from Holism, New age practices, and Fringe science as well? -- Brangifer (talk) 16:18, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, let's remove it from fringe science. Certain sub-cats and articles maybe belong to fringe science (those funded by the NIH), but not shamanism and things like that. Same probably with Holism.Biophys (talk) 17:11, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  :Category:Traditional medicine makes sense in some ways, but that is currently a subcategory of this, which I think works better. This leaves the categorization of this category a bit sparse, but I am not sure that that is a problem. :Category:Health movements might apply as long as it does not imply central organization or unanimity on all points. - 2/0 (cont.) 20:20, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  That sounds like a pretty good category to use instead of the others. Let's try it. -- Brangifer (talk) 20:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text:  Done. Biophys or anyone, just revert if we need more discussion. - 2/0 (cont.) 21:26, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rethinking category tree 

message: It is against US law to refer to the above as any kind of medicine.Redheylin (talk) 05:02, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: False advertising laws, at least.  As for the term alternative medicine, it's often used as a blanket term for all sorts of unscientific snake oil. There's significant professional criticism regarding the use of the term for such things. –Gunslinger47 20:05, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Ionized bracelet]] 

message: While this category applies to some alternative medicines, it doesn't apply to all of them, particularly traditional Asian medicines.  The category should go on particular individual articles (or subcategories, if applicable) rather than this broad parent category.  --Middle 8 (talk) 06:07, 5 July 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: And the same reasoning remains true for :Category:Pseudoscience, over which there was a low-level edit war recently, and which I just removed with an ES explaining the consensus discussed above at Category_talk:Alternative_medicine#Not_category:pseudoscience_again. --Middle 8 (talk) 16:11, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title: Category:New Age Practices?