Author: Henry H. Bauer
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786485744
Category : Health & Fitness
Languages : en
Pages : 303
Get Book Here
Book Description
The nature of scientific activity has changed dramatically over the last half century, and the objectivity and rigorous search for evidence that once defined it are being abandoned. Increasingly, this text argues, dogma has taken the place of authentic science. This study examines how conflicts of interest--both institutional and individual--have become pervasive in the science world, and also explores the troubling state of research funding and flaws of the peer-review process. It looks in depth at the dominance of several specific theories, including the Big Bang cosmology, human-caused global warming, HIV as a cause of AIDS, and the efficacy of anti-depressant drugs. In a scientific environment where distinguished experts who hold contrary views are shunned, this book is an important contribution to the examination of scientific heterodoxies.
Author: Henry H. Bauer
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476628238
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Get Book Here
Book Description
This book discusses the ways in which science, the touchstone of reliable knowledge in modern society, changed dramatically in the second half of the 20th century, becoming less trustworthy through conflicts of interest and excessive competitiveness. Fraud became common enough that organized efforts to combat it now include a federal Office of Research Integrity. Competent minority opinions are sometimes thereby suppressed, with the result that policy makers, the media and the public are presented with biased or incomplete information. Evidence tending to challenge established theories is sometimes rejected without addressing its substance. While most would agree in the abstract that science can go wrong, few would consider—despite interesting contrary evidence—that official consensus about the origins of the universe or the causes of global warming might be mistaken.
Author: Olivier Clerc
Publisher: Personhood Press
ISBN: 9781932181142
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 116
Get Book Here
Book Description
Put forth in this book is the assertion that medicine is actually ruled by a set of beliefs, myths, and rites of Christianity it has never freed itself from. Supporting this claim are discussions about the ways in which physicians have taken the place of priests, vaccination plays the same role as baptism, the search for health has replaced the quest for salvation, and the hope of physical immortality (cloning and genetic engineering) takes priority over eternal life. This book argues that the medical establishment has become the government's ally, as the Catholic Church has in the past. "Charlatans" are prosecuted today, as "heretics" were in the past, and dogmatism rules out promising medical theories. It contends that only by becoming aware of how religious beliefs and primitive fears unconsciously influence one's relationships with medicine can people start walking on the path of freedom, personal responsibility, and individual sovereignty.
Author: Galen
Publisher: Hackett Publishing
ISBN: 9780915145928
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 152
Get Book Here
Book Description
Contents: Introduction , Bibliography On the Sects for Beginners An Outline of Empiricism On Medical Experience Index of the Persons Mentioned in the Texts Index of the Subjects Mentioned in the Texts
Author: Will Storr
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
ISBN: 9781468310108
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
Get Book Here
Book Description
While excavating fossils in the tropics of Australia with a celebrity creationist, Will Storr asked himself a simple question. Why don't facts work?
Author: Franz Hartmann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Magic
Languages : en
Pages : 120
Get Book Here
Book Description
Author: Alex Broadbent
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190612169
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 306
Get Book Here
Book Description
Philosophy of Medicine asks two central questions about medicine: what is it, and what should we think of it? Philosophy of medicine itself has evolved in response to developments in the philosophy of science, especially with regard to epistemology, positioning it to make contributions that are medically useful. This book locates these developments within a larger framework, suggesting that much philosophical thinking about medicine contributes to answering one or both of these two guiding questions. Taking stock of philosophy of medicine's present place in the landscape and its potential to illuminate a wide range of areas, from public health to policy, Alex Broadbent introduces various key topics in the philosophy of medicine. The first part of the book argues for a novel view of the nature of medicine, arguing that medicine should be understood as an inquiry into the nature and causes of health and disease. Medicine excels at achieving understanding, but not at translating this understanding into cure, a frustration that has dogged the history of medicine and continues to the present day. The second part of the book explores how we ought to consider medicine. Contemporary responses, such as evidence-based medicine and medical nihilism, tend to respond by fixing high standards of evidence. Broadbent rejects these approaches in favor of Medical Cosmopolitanism, or a rejection of epistemic relativism and pluralism about medicine that encourages conversations between medical traditions. From this standpoint, Broadbent opens the way to embracing alternative medicine. An accessible and user-friendly guide, Philosophy of Medicine puts these different debates into perspective and identifies areas that demand further exploration.
Author: Moti Mizrahi
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538163349
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 207
Get Book Here
Book Description
The term “scientism” is used in several ways. It is used to denote an epistemological thesis according to which science is the source of our knowledge about the world and ourselves. Relatedly, it is used to denote a methodological thesis according to which the methods of science are superior to the methods of non-scientific fields or areas of inquiry. It is also used to put forward a metaphysical thesis that what exists is what science says exists. In recent decades, the term “scientism” has acquired a derogatory meaning when it is used in defense of non-scientific ways of knowing. In particular, some philosophers level the charge of “scientism” against those (mostly scientists) who are dismissive of philosophy. Other philosophers, however, embrace scientism, or some variant thereof, and object to the pejorative use of the term. This book critically examines arguments for and against different varieties of scientism in order to answer the central question: Does scientism pose an existential threat to academic philosophy? Or should philosophy become more scientific?
Author: Rupert Sheldrake
Publisher: Coronet
ISBN: 9781529393224
Category : Materialism
Languages : en
Pages : 448
Get Book Here
Book Description
Freeing the Spirit of EnquiryThe Science Delusion is the belief that science already understands the nature of reality. The fundamental questions are answered, leaving only the details to be filled in. In this book (published in the US as Science Set Free), Dr Rupert Sheldrake, one of the world's most innovative scientists, shows that science is being constricted by assumptions that have hardened into dogmas. The 'scientific worldview' has become a belief system. All reality is material or physical. The world is a machine, made up of dead matter. Nature is purposeless. Consciousness is nothing but the physical activity of the brain. Free will is an illusion. God exists only as an idea in human minds, imprisoned within our skulls. Sheldrake examines these dogmas scientifically, and shows persuasively that science would be better off without them: freer, more interesting, and more fun.In The God Delusion Richard Dawkins used science to bash God, but here Rupert Sheldrake shows that Dawkins' understanding of what science can do is old-fashioned and itself a delusion.
Author: Richard Milton
Publisher: Inner Traditions / Bear & Co
ISBN: 9780892816316
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 276
Get Book Here
Book Description
This tour of the scientific frontier makes a strong case that the alternative science of today will be the hard science of the future.
