There is no alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't work.

Dawkins’ line collapses the marketing distinction between “alternative” and “conventional” medicine into a single evidentiary standard: outcomes demonstrated by reliable testing. The point is not that new or nontraditional treatments are impossible, but that once a therapy is shown to be safe and effective, it simply becomes medicine. Conversely, practices that cannot outperform placebo or that fail rigorous trials should not be insulated from criticism by being labeled “alternative.” The quote functions as a defense of scientific medicine and a critique of pseudoscience, emphasizing that patient care should be guided by reproducible evidence rather than tradition, anecdote, or branding.

1) “There is no such thing as alternative medicine. There is only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t work.”
2) “There is no alternative medicine—only medicine that works and medicine that doesn’t.”