There is no alternative medicine. There is only scientifically proven, evidence-based medicine supported by solid data or unproven medicine, for which scientific evidence is lacking.

—Phil B. Fontanarosa and George D. Lundberg, “Alternative Medicine Meets Science” (1998)

The only solid piece of scientific truth about which I feel totally confident is that we are profoundly ignorant about nature…. It is this sudden confrontation with the depth and scope of ignorance that represents the most significant contribution of twentieth-century science to the human intellect.

—Lewis Thomas, The Medusa and the Snail (1979)