Pseudosciences, a danger to public health
Science professionals have been concerned about a while with what they call the issue of what separates the good science from bad science and pseudoscience . The problem is relevant for at least three reasons.
- The first demarcation: it is crucial for our search for knowledge;His issues go to the center of debates on epistemology and the nature of truth and discovery.
- The second reason is civic: our company spends billions of dollars of taxes on scientific research, so it is important that we also understand what constitutes money well spent in this regard. Should the National Health Institutes finance research on "alternative medicine"? Should the Defense Department finance studies on telepathy?
- Thirdly, as an ethical issue, pseudoscience is not, contrary to popular belief, simply a harmless hobby of credulous, often threatens the well -being of people, sometimes fatally. For example, millions of people around the world have died of AIDS because they (or, in some cases, their governments) refuse to accept the basic scientific findings about the disease, trusting their destiny to popular remedies and therapies of “oil fromsnake".
This, however, runs the risk of confusing the possible effectiveness of popular remedies with the arbitrary theoretical background attributed to them. There is no doubt that some home remedies work.
The active ingredient of aspirin, for example, is derived from the sauce bark, which was known to have beneficial effects. Nor is there any mystery about how this happens: people have tried more or less random solutions to their health problems for millennia, sometimes stumbling with something useful. However, what makes the use of aspirin ‘scientific’ is that its effectiveeffects
In terms of empirical results, there are strong indications that acupuncture is effective in reducing chronic pain and nausea, but simulated therapy, in which needles are applied in random places or are not even drilled through the skin, it isbe equally effective. So go to these treatments are not unacceptable.
When does pseudosciences become a public danger?
Well, the answer to this question is very easy. It begins to make danger when people replace medications to treat serious pathology with remedies made with ‘miraculous’ plants or for treatments that do not get worse but do nothing.
While it is true that different opinions are not intrinsically dangerous, it is also a reality that is dangerous when people cannot know if something is scientific or not. So, they are not simply choosing not believing in science;They are wrongly induced to think that something that is not based on facts is science.
This is widespread in medical care and nutrition. People say that studies prove all kinds of things that do not prove. Often these studies or reports abuse causality and correlation. While some people have modified their diets or have refused to take medications based on pseudoscience, many others simply do not know where to obtain reliable information.
Leave feedback