DC’s Improbable Science just posted a blog referencing a Guardian newspaper article on DC’s efforts to remove pseudosciences (such as homeopathy) from British universities, especially when such universities are offering BSc degree courses in such nonsense. Westminster University gets a special mention and so they should with their infamous amethysts emit high yin energy.
It is particularly incongruous that, despite evidence to the contrary, people such as Westminster’s Dr Peter Davies claim that such courses are academically rigorous and scientific, and that homeopathy isn’t a placebo effect. They also try and cloud the issue by saying that herbal treatments need to be studied; the implication being that traditional “Western” scientists are not studying these which is also demonstratably false [1] [2] [3]. By mixing up different subjects and misrepresenting them, these people try to put forward the idea that they are the real innovators fighting the establishment and Big Pharma.
References:
[2] “Herbal medicines fail test” – DC’s Improbable Science
[3] “The Herbal Minefield” – QuackWatch, Stephen Barrett, M.D.
The truth may be puzzling. It may take some work to grapple with. It may be counterintuitive. It may contradict deeply held prejudices. It may not be consonant with what we desperately want to be true. But our preferences do not determine what’s true. We have a method, and that method helps us to reach not absolute truth, only asymptotic approaches to the truth — never there, just closer and closer, always finding vast new oceans of undiscovered possibilities. Cleverly designed experiments are the key. – Carl Sagan
Copyright © 2009 Kulvinder Singh Matharu – All Rights Reserved
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