Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Medical school pseudoscience is pervasive
When I first began researching the antiscientific agenda in medical education I thought it was confined to isolated examples popping up here and there. I was wrong. It’s become organized. There’s a consortium of academic medical centers pushing for more pseudoscience in the curriculum. Is your favorite med school on the list?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
YOu are jokin right? These people are doing research. I don't get why you would discount something just because it is not mainstream big-pharma funded. If a well-researched alternative to the traditional treatments turns out to be effective - I woudl call this SCIENCE .. and your knee-jerk rejection of all things "integrative" to be the pseudo-science. Shame on you!
Jacob,
Thanks for your comment. Perhaps you've misunderstood my position regarding alt med. I want to clarify my stance on this issue and address certain misconceptions. I plan to do this in a follow up blog post. Stay tuned. rwd
While I have agreed with you in the past in your criticism of alternative medicine, I am with Jacob here. You have jumped the shark if you think this consortium is pseudo-science.
Any approach to medicine that uses rigorous scientific study to establish its principles is science, not pseudoscience. Science is not a set of rules or laws. It is a method of inquiry. Any conclusion drawn using proper methodology is science, period.
I do not see anything wrong with an approach to medicine that focuses on the doctor patient relationship. Our humanity is sometimes all we have. We can't cure everything yet.
Dr. Hebert,
I agree with investigation according to scientifically rigorous standards, no matter whose. There is some legitimate research going on in CAM, which I applaud (see my blogpost in response to Jacob's comments). I have browsed the material form the consortium extensively, particularly the curriculum guide and the programs of the individual medical schools represented. And while some valid research is represented there I found so much uncritical promotion of scientifically baseless notions of "energy alignment" and such that I have to conclude that they are pushing pseudoscience. You can't package good science and mysticism together---you end up with an ecclectic mix that has no definition and no consistent base. Finally, I don't think a science based approach precludes attention to the doctor-patient relationship.
Post a Comment