Junk Science

A few days ago, a group called the Friends of Science in Medicine wrote to the Vice Chancellors of Australian universities, speaking out against the teaching of complementary and alternative medicine in the curriculum. This group consists of more than 400 Australian professors, academics, researchers and scientists who work in biomedicine. I’m one of them – a very junior one.

The strength of the reactions has been fascinating. In the last 48 hours alone, I’ve been a fascist, an elitist, arrogant, narrow-minded, a shill for sociopathic corporate interests, viciously protective of my orthodoxy and a generally morally reprehensible crusader for the intellectual interests of old, white men.

I wonder how I have the time, to be honest. However, in the middle of all the noise and mutual disdain between both sides of the alternative medicine divide, what I think is the central point is being lost. And that central point is this: Magic is an insufficient basis for university teaching.

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