TY - JOUR T1 - The Anarchy of Evidence JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 135 LP - 135 DO - 10.3399/bjgp10X483337 VL - 60 IS - 571 AU - Edzard Ernst Y1 - 2010/02/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/60/571/135.abstract N2 - We have all heard of the ‘hierarchy of evidence’. It describes a hierarchy of study designs for testing the effectiveness of therapeutic interventions and enables us to contemplate the relative merits of different types of investigations. In my field, complementary medicine, the logic behind this hierarchy has remained a hotly disputed topic.1 Many believers in complementary medicine seem to reject it and some even seem to have started promoting something I call the ‘anarchy of evidence’.Enthusiasts of this or that complementary therapy invariably seem to be in favour of evidence-based medicine — but only as long as its application to their subject generates the results they had hoped for! Whenever the evidence fails to … ER -