Alternative medicine is any practice that is put forward as having the healing effects of medicine, but does not originate from evidence gathered using the scientific method. So e.g. candling, homeopathy, Whole Body Vibration Training, acupuncture, etc. Given that either the effect sizes of these methods are negligible or they don't work at all, these practices are irrational from both the epistemic and the instrumental perspective. The explanation of the assertion might be a bit circular since any "alternative" medicine that works would simply be medicine. Well I can't do anything about that.
Alternative medicine is any practice that is put forward as having the healing effects of medicine, but does not originate from evidence gathered using the scientific method.
LOL. That's pretty much most of contemporary Western medicine. Recall that "evidence-based medicine" is a relatively recent notion and still resisted by a lot of doctors.
A couple of years back I stumbled across this diagram on reddit. Since then I've kept a list of all illogical arguments, quackery, irrational ideas and similar nonsense, to pass the time. The count as of today stands at 1229 irrational ideas (a few could be debated perhaps). Hopefully you'll have a laugh or two! Any additions let me know!
Link to the list:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1T3HQ6TnCg6Q44WzpJPFxLvfqbfvKmT5RqvpGI3ji1y8/edit?usp=sharing
And the original diagram: