Abstract

The validity of clinical trials for certain alternative treatments has been called into question by supporters of unconventional and pseudoscientific practices, who criticize the way their beliefs are investigated scientifically or the verdicts reached by science. This chapter focuses on the following basic question: what treatments can be scientifically investigated at all? It aims to provide a better understanding of what conditions medical treatments must fulfill to be eligible for scientific investigation. In particular, the discussion is a rejoinder to the claims put forward by adherents of alternative medicine that their treatments are inaccessible to scientific scrutiny.