In my view ResearchGate is developing in the right direction, i.e. real scientists use it, try to help others. A few months ago, it seemed too many quacks tried to use RG to sell their questionable, or even criminal, pseudo medical treatments for general health or even against cancer. I recently found an interesting list on Wikipedia (although I generally do not advice to use Wikipedia for really important questions): "List of ineffective cancer treatments" (see Link below). I thought this is quite a huge overview, just mentioning so many "alternatives". I wonder, why in our days still so many people get victims of questionable treatments?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ineffective_cancer_treatments
"humans are no logic driven vulcanians"
Suppose Dr Spock was told he had inoperable and fatal cancer. I think he would reason that it was logical for him to try some new experimental drug or unconventional treatment, since although the probability of any of these working was very low, it was still higher than the alternative.
@Anthony
You seem to mix up "proven to be wrong" with "experimental" treatments. Therefore, Mr. Spock never would choose a known to be non-working, but also life-shortening and/or quality of life reducing treatment as all the pseudomedicines may have in common. He may choose a -by scientific standards developed- experimental treatment offered by a University Hospital - although many of such studies might be stopped when it becomes clear to provide no benefit for the patients compared to the Gold Standard.
" Spock never would choose a known to be non-working....treatment"
Spock knows that you cannot prove a negative. I do not think laetrile cures cancer, but the onus is on its proponents to show that it works. Most alternative treatments like homeopathy or acupuncture do not shorten life except to the extent that they divert from effective medical treatment or soak up money.
"quality of life reducing treatment as all the pseudomedicines may have in common"
Health foods and alternative medicines generally improve the quality of people's lives, which is why these are so popular. People believe they are doing them good, and there are very strong placebo effects. They may well feel better, though not for the reasons stated nor for the underlying medical rationale.
Many patients die just because they tried alternative medicine, especially if they stopped real medicine. Therefore, even alternative treatments like homeopathy and accupuncture, which may not primarily directly harm the patients as many other alternative treatments, can kill a patient, who would survive better and longer with approved therapies.
@Thomas, thanks for your answers and explanations. I may agree with many of your points, but not with all of them: of course, I see not any alternative to medicine, i.e. only evidence-based medicine should be allowed to use the term medicine - and "alternatives" should not be allowed legally to use even this term "medicine" under any circumstances - since this may imply for some patients, that they could choose from similarly working options; I was surprised to see so many criminal "alternatives" on the Wikipedia-list above, I couldn't beleive this amount. So, I think any working treatment enters soon real medicine and approval, whereas all old or proven to harm treatments just remain "alternative" medicine, or whatsoever, but usually harm the patient, in some cases even directly.
I really think, most of the victims who die statistically much earlier and with much more suffering due to "alternative medicine" just don't have the knowledge that "unproven" treatment usually really means scientifically "disproven".
"most...... just don't have the knowledge that "unproven" treatment usually really means scientifically "disproven".
Surely there is all the difference in the world between 'disproven' and 'unproven'? I doubt that acupuncture has a specific effect, and have not seen any consistent evidence for it. So I consider it 'not proven'. However, this does not exclude the possibility that someone could come up tomorrow with a few good studies which do in fact show that it works.
Well, the reason, why there are basically no current clinical studies on most of the "alternative" approaches is, that they were already tested and shown either not to work, or worse, to reduce life span and/or life quality. This may be the major point of the "psychosis of the masses" that people think, those alternatives just needed to be tested better and then one should see, perhaps, a positive effect.
I am not arguing against, for example, accupuncture or homeopathy in general, but they seem to be "disproven" for any cancer treatment. Of course, many treatments may have a use as in psychosomatic therapies, but no effect on cancer.
I recently thought, that ResearchGate acted against several of the self-advertising quacks, selling their disproven and harmful treatments against any known or unknown diseases. Should one mention any new or still spamming quacks to ResearchGate?
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