I don't think it's one or the other, either/or. However, wouldn't you agree that there is sometimes an anti-science bias in new age/alternative med circles? Or, if not anti-science, at least anti the scientific establishment? I'm not saying there isn't some warrant for it, sometimes the scientific establishment is wrong. Vaccines have been given out that have harmed children. Drugs have been approved that were dangerous. Herbs of known usefulness (garlic keeps down cholesterol) are unrated by the FDA.
I have a lot of friends who are waaaaay into the alternative medicine scene. They take herbs for whatever ails them. They denounce "allopathic" medicine for being interventionist and Western. A few years ago I got bit by a tick and came down with Lyme Disease. My friends told me not to take antibiotics, to take lots of vitamins instead, antibiotics, they said, could kill. I took the antibiotics and had no side effects.
I agree that alternative medicine is here to stay, that it has some useful insights, and that it has an anti-science bias.
--lk