Wuhan March 2011: Complementary and Alternative Medicines

Well this is not quite a holiday but i'm not in Singapore.
I am in Wuhan for work bringing students over and teaching them a module:
Complementary and Alternative Medicine. I have to read up a lot for this module. I am not quite an expert in any form of CAM so the message I can put across through this module is that different practices would have different philosophy. It may not be scientifically proven but who says that the scientific method is the only true method.
Respect the other points of view. Acknowledge that there is truth in practices that are not really based on true science. Ayurveda for example did not come from science (or did it?) but some Ayurvedic practices have been scientifically proven to be true (based on textbook readings and cited journals in textbooks). Ayurveda is just one of many CAM practices that have been scientifically proven. Why else would many physicians recommend it to their patients?
And the concept of prevention, it has been preached for many years in the complementary and alternative practices and it took such a long time for conventional medicine to actually embrace it.
Next is to acknowledge that different systems adopt different philosophy. They may be beyond our comprehension but that is because of our limited exposure to other schools of thought. How different we can be. Again... respect differences.
My own principle is, if it does no harm, why stop? Is there totally no harm? Isn't letting people pay for treatment that is not proven to be effective some kind of harm too? So we think it is not effective? If they really aren't why have they stood the tests of time? Who are we to be so arrogant and egoistic to say that our way is the only way? What exactly is our way? An ineffective bogus practice will die off sooner or later anyway. A harmful one will die a quicker death.
Ok. Blabbering will end for today. I was reading my students' blogs when I suddenly felt like blogging... Not that anyone is reading. :)))