Damn Steve Novella.

Well, not really, but I always get annoyed when someone comes up with an analogy or description of a phenomenon that I should have thought of first. I don’t really get annoyed at the person who came up with such ideas, but rather at myself for not thinking of something so obvious or precious first. Whether this self-criticism is a symptom of the megalomania or massive ego that I have been accused of having by some of my less–shall we say?–enamored readers or simply a personality quirk, I’ll leave to the reader to decide.

Whatever the case, writing for Science-Based Medicine, Steve Novella nails it perfectly when he describes why so many advocates of so-called “complementary and alternative medicine” (CAM) are very much like small children making stuff up as they go along:

My daughter, Julia, loves to play games and has a bit of a competitive streak. She can make any activity into a game and is adept at making up rules on the spot. When she was younger, like most children, she had a tendency to add to or change the rules on the fly - usually to ensure a favorable outcome for herself. “Oh, Daddy, I forgot to mention that the ball can bounce once and that still counts.”

It was an opportunity for me to gently teach her that in order for rules to work everyone has to know what they are ahead of time and you can’t change them after the fact. Her smile told me that even at five she intuitively knew this already - that changing or making up new rules was not fair. What I was really teaching her was that she wasn’t going to get away with it with me, and by extension that it is socially unacceptable to mess with the rules to suit oneself.

Now, here’s where Steve nails it:

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