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Wikipedia:Minchin's Law

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Minchin's Law is the central law of so-called complementary and alternative medicine (SCAM).[1][2][3]

It was originally stated by Australian humourist Tim Minchin as follows:

"By definition", I begin
"Alternative Medicine", I continue
"Has either not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
You know what they call "alternative medicine"
That’s been proved to work?
Medicine."

— Tim Minchin, Storm[4]

Thus, any alternative medical treatment is presumptively bogus.

  1. ^ "The short and irreverent e-dition of The Skeptic's Dictionary – part 1 – sCAM – so-called complementary and alternative medicine". skepdic.com. Retrieved 2016-10-15.
  2. ^ Tyreman, Stephen (2011-05-01). "Values in complementary and alternative medicine". Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. 14 (2): 209–17. doi:10.1007/s11019-010-9297-5. ISSN 1572-8633. PMID 21104324. S2CID 32143622.
  3. ^ Hall, Harriet (August 3, 2018). "Alternative medicine a scam? New book exposes the lack of scientific rigor of 'complementary' treatments". Genetic Literacy Project. Retrieved March 24, 2022.
  4. ^ Minchin, Tim (2011-04-07). Tim Minchin's Storm the Animated Movie. Archived from the original on 2021-11-22.