Hi Kriston,
Okay, now I get where you're coming from. The types of examples you're talking about are a whole different kettle of fish. Zero cost, zero harm, and easy, so why not give it a try? Also, definitely some surface plausibility. We know so little about the effects on our bodies of recently-invented chemicals. And finally, it's the kind of thing that is so easy to implement that anecdotal evidence starts to be worth considering. Ordinary people can execute their own "A-B-A-B" design (alternating control condition and treatment) and observe the effects.
That doctor sounds like a jerk. Regular doctors, the type who just see patients, aren't actually trained as scientists. They're basically just technicians. And they vary a lot in how savvy they are about evidence, etc. Some of them (like in the discussion of teachers going on in another thread!) have a lot of ego invested in being the authority. And to be fair, some of them are just sick to death of patients coming in and saying, "I read on the internet that blah blah blah [insert thoroughly discredited idea here], so why should I take my pills?" So they have a knee-jerk reaction. Which doesn't make it right, just maybe a little more understandable.
