Eli5: how are treatments like acupuncture, kinetic tape and homeopathy still a thing, if scientific studies disproving their effectiveness are publicly available to everyone and doctors?

Question

Eli5: how are treatments like acupuncture, kinetic tape and homeopathy still a thing, if scientific studies disproving their effectiveness are publicly available to everyone and doctors?

In: Biology

Answer 1

There has been a serious decline in trust in institutions and expertise.

Many people believe that because the scientific consensus changes when new information comes out and scientific studies often come to contradictory findings, that the scientific method is no more reliable than “common sense” or their “gut feeling”.

It also depends on the malady in question. Nobody is going to use homeopathy alone to set a broken bone or treat acute appendicitis, but there are many conditions (minor, persistent fatigue, chronic back pain, “brain fog”, fibromyalgia, mood disorders, etc.) that medical science doesn’t have a great handle on and a placebo is sometimes not the worst thing in the world.