- Email: [email protected]
Cultural origins of homeopathy: theoretical structure and methodological shortcomings
226
Phamzacological Research, Vol. 26, Supplement 1, 1992
THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF KARL R. POPPER Prof. Massimo Baldini Department of Experimental Medicine - University of Rome, Italy
The epistemology of Karl Popper clearly takes into account the tremendous influence of error in scientific discovery. Popper affirms that in science as in life the ruling method is that of trial and error, or learning from our m istakes. Scientists throw out conjectures which they subject to strict controls, trying to see how long they’ll hold up. But also if their solution to the problem confronting them will still have learned a great deaf. As in life, so it is in science. The more one attempts, the more one learns even thought the attempt fails to solve that particular problem every time. There is no such thing as a scientific method which permits us to avoid making m istakes. The solution is arrived at only through the use of imagination and by following the path of conjecture and confutation. From the preceding emerges the fact that in the main every scientific theory is obliged to contain some errors, and that all of our scientific knowledge can never escape its hypothetic or conjectural nature.
CULTURAL ORIGINS OF HOMEOPATHY: THEORETICAL STRUCTURE AND MRTHODOLOGICAL SHORTCOMINGS Giovanni Federspil", Roberto Vettor Patologia Medica III, Cattedra di Metodologia Clinica", Universita' di Padova, Italia. Homeopathy is a medical creed that flourished within the trend of medical medicine". It was one of those "medical systems" thought known as "romantic which spread widely through Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century. The original theory maintains that the phenomena of the body are largely determined by a "vital immaterial energy" and that disease is caused by a disturbance in this vital energy. According to homeopathy, there are only three chronic diseases: psora, lues and sycosis. Drugs are said to act according to the law of "similia similibus curantur" and the 'principle of infinitesimal dilutions". Homeopathy does not possess even those minimal methodological requirements which enable a theory to be considered scientific. a) Its terminology is often vague and ambiguous. b) Its factual observations are often incomplete and expressed only in a qualitative form. c) Its theoretical concepts are often not operationally definable. d) Its theses are often supported by ad hoc hypotheses. e) Its claims often cannot be checked empirically. f) Homeopathic theories are in total disagreement with the most consolidated knowledge of chemistry and biomedical sciences. g) Historical analysis shows that even among followers consensus of opinion has not been achieved.. of homeopathy a universal All these features taken together make it impossible to consider nomeopathy as a truly scientific theory.
Phamzacological Research, Vol. 26, Supplement 1, 1992
THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF KARL R. POPPER Prof. Massimo Baldini Department of Experimental Medicine - University of Rome, Italy
The epistemology of Karl Popper clearly takes into account the tremendous influence of error in scientific discovery. Popper affirms that in science as in life the ruling method is that of trial and error, or learning from our m istakes. Scientists throw out conjectures which they subject to strict controls, trying to see how long they’ll hold up. But also if their solution to the problem confronting them will still have learned a great deaf. As in life, so it is in science. The more one attempts, the more one learns even thought the attempt fails to solve that particular problem every time. There is no such thing as a scientific method which permits us to avoid making m istakes. The solution is arrived at only through the use of imagination and by following the path of conjecture and confutation. From the preceding emerges the fact that in the main every scientific theory is obliged to contain some errors, and that all of our scientific knowledge can never escape its hypothetic or conjectural nature.
CULTURAL ORIGINS OF HOMEOPATHY: THEORETICAL STRUCTURE AND MRTHODOLOGICAL SHORTCOMINGS Giovanni Federspil", Roberto Vettor Patologia Medica III, Cattedra di Metodologia Clinica", Universita' di Padova, Italia. Homeopathy is a medical creed that flourished within the trend of medical medicine". It was one of those "medical systems" thought known as "romantic which spread widely through Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century. The original theory maintains that the phenomena of the body are largely determined by a "vital immaterial energy" and that disease is caused by a disturbance in this vital energy. According to homeopathy, there are only three chronic diseases: psora, lues and sycosis. Drugs are said to act according to the law of "similia similibus curantur" and the 'principle of infinitesimal dilutions". Homeopathy does not possess even those minimal methodological requirements which enable a theory to be considered scientific. a) Its terminology is often vague and ambiguous. b) Its factual observations are often incomplete and expressed only in a qualitative form. c) Its theoretical concepts are often not operationally definable. d) Its theses are often supported by ad hoc hypotheses. e) Its claims often cannot be checked empirically. f) Homeopathic theories are in total disagreement with the most consolidated knowledge of chemistry and biomedical sciences. g) Historical analysis shows that even among followers consensus of opinion has not been achieved.. of homeopathy a universal All these features taken together make it impossible to consider nomeopathy as a truly scientific theory.