Should Chinese Medicine and usage of herbs for health purposes be on topic?
Proposal: Health
3 Answers
Yes, in my opinion questions about everything that is meant to affect health should be on-topic.
As well as the questions about how the various things (like high heels etc.) affect health.
If you say, be on topic, do you mean like whether people are allowed to ask that? Why shouldn't they be allowed to? I say of course they can. It's the task of the answerers to either prove their answer (let's say that some particular herb has an actual effect or not) with some studies or point out that it's just their opinion or experience (like maybe when acupuncture helped in one's case).
My personal opinion is that snake oil should be called out for what it is, so as a general rule no.
But on that note if there is something which can be objectively proven (yes I mean double blind trials with a control.) then I think it should be on topic.
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3This stackexchange site would be a great opportunity to call out snake oil of what it is. A question "Will taking X affect ailment Y" with an answer "according to this double-blind study it won't affect it at all" would be a constructive asset to the site. For that reason questions about "alternative" medicine would be on-topic just for the answers which debunk them. Answers based on unproven and unscientific statements by charlatans will certainly be called out as such and downvoted.– PhilippMar 24, 2015 at 16:51
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1intresting how I have recieved a crapton of downvotes on this one yet the only comment is a positive one :S Mar 24, 2015 at 23:38
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3@DamianNikodem, I downvoted, and I also agree with Philipp's comment. I agree that snake oil should be called out in an answer, but that doesn't mean questions asking about such things should be off-topic, but rather the answers should try to get to the truth.– KenshinMar 25, 2015 at 2:47
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