Empirical Medicine

Most people entertain a deluded concept of the practice of medicine. In the fantasized version, nearly all common diseases are well-understood and their treatment algorithms are well-tuned according to the latest research and adjusted as newer treatments are developed and clinical trials performed. In contrast, a large number of idiots, quackadoos and conspiracy theorists imagine that most of medicine is a sham, that doctors know nothing, that more harm than good is done by western medicine. While these purveyors of homeopathy (treatments that tend to be at best ineffectual and at worst dangerous) are far from the truth, so are those who imagine medicine to be steadfastly scientific.