I started researching naturopathy, and what I learned concerned me. Regular readers to the blog will be familiar with naturopathy, but depending on where you live, the likelihood that you may encounter a naturopath (or someone that consults one) may vary. Naturopathy has been described at SBM as a chimera, something that’s imagined, but in reality is illusory or impossible to achieve. That’s an apt description for naturopathy, as the practice is a strange assortment of unorthodox, discarded, and disparate alternative health practices, linked by a philosophy based on pre-scientific ideas of medicine. The central belief, vitalism, posits that living beings have a “life force” not found in inanimate objects. Vitalism as a hypothesis in medicine was reasonable 200 years ago, but despite being disproved by Wöhler in 1828, it continues to thrive in naturopathy. Naturopathic treatment ideas are grounded in the idea of restoring this “energy”, rather than being based on objective science. It is perhaps unsurprising that disparate practices like homeopathy, acupuncture and herbalism are all part of naturopathy, yet don’t cause any cognitive dissonance for its practitioners. Given there’s no need to justify or rationalize practices in scientific terms, pretty much anything goes, as long as it aligns with this belief system. To be fair, not all naturopath advice is bunk. Some can be sound. Unfortunately this isn’t because there is good scientific evidence to support that practice, but rather that the beliefs and philosophy of naturopathy happen to align with science...