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A review by plethora0352
Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine by Paul A. Offit
4.0
Well written and informative. Footnotes in the text linking to the studies he mentions would have been enormously helpful, and their absence is the only reason I didn't give five stars. There are notes for each chapter at the end of the book.
It's clear early in the book that he has little patience for "alternative"medicine, and while that attitude is certainly warranted, I think a less condescending and more objective tone would have helped the book. The tone doesn't damage his point or undermine the truth of what he's saying, but I think it would have helped people who are heavily invested in "alternative" remedies or people who are simply curious and uninformed about the topic to be more receptive to his message. This is especially the case because I think some skepticism toward Big Pharma is warranted (Offit even recently wrote a book on the topic called Overkill). I think emphasizing that scientific evidence is what matters would have gone a long way in this regard.
There is a tone shift in the last section of the book, where he talks about why people think "alternative" medicine works and how sometimes it does and that these methods have a place in healthcare. Expanding on this idea and how to implement it in the real world or just in the reader's life would have been helpful.
It's clear early in the book that he has little patience for "alternative"medicine, and while that attitude is certainly warranted, I think a less condescending and more objective tone would have helped the book. The tone doesn't damage his point or undermine the truth of what he's saying, but I think it would have helped people who are heavily invested in "alternative" remedies or people who are simply curious and uninformed about the topic to be more receptive to his message. This is especially the case because I think some skepticism toward Big Pharma is warranted (Offit even recently wrote a book on the topic called Overkill). I think emphasizing that scientific evidence is what matters would have gone a long way in this regard.
There is a tone shift in the last section of the book, where he talks about why people think "alternative" medicine works and how sometimes it does and that these methods have a place in healthcare. Expanding on this idea and how to implement it in the real world or just in the reader's life would have been helpful.