How evidence based medicine…
Ever since the dawn of medicine centuries ago, misinformation about healing has been propagated to the public through various methods. The earliest method used, especially during the Black Death in the 14th and 15th centuries, was the ‘traditional authority’ approach to science and medicine. This consisted of the idea that if a prominent person declared something to be true, then it must be so—and anything observed to the contrary was regarded as an anomaly.flawed.
Centuries later, physicians like Ibn al-Nafis (regarded as ‘the greatest physiologist of the Middle Ages’) and Vesalius (founder of modern human anatomy) replaced previous doctrines and discreditedmany of the theories of ‘traditional authorities’ with doctrines derived from their explorations in physiology and anatomy.
Fast forward to the 20th century—evidence-based medicine began to emerge, wherein the most effective ways of doing things (also called ‘algorithms of practice’ or ‘best practice’) were identified through scientific methods and modern global information science. The evidence was collated; standard protocols were developed, and thereafter disseminated to doctors and healthcare providers. The problem with the ‘best practice’ approach is that it served to suppress all other alternative approaches to treatment.
Furthermore, the scientific methods used in drawing conclusions, although seemingly logical and unbiased (therefore, reliable), were actually
All scientific experimentation is subject to confirmation bias (or the observer-expectancy effect) to a certain extent. Confirmation bias is an unfair influence found in scientific research when a researcher expects a given result, and therefore, unconsciously manipulates an experiment in order to find that result. A researcher’s particular ideology, worldview, superstitions, traditions or religion can cause him or her to assign greater weight to some data over other data.
The human brain has a tendency to fill in the gaps of what it perceives, and often times, a researcher may also be stubborn, unwilling to admit a mistake, or embarrassed by having to withdraw a publicly declared belief.
Thus, any conclusions derived from “scientific studies” or “clinical studies” are rarely unbiased, and thus, cannot always be regarded as reliable.
At present, there exists a confusing array of so-called‘best practices’ for every part of the anatomy, all
tainted with bias to one degree or another. This has made the curing of diseasesseem
What complicates thematter is that the field of medicinehas given rise to a slew of organ-based specializations such as neurology, cardiology, dermatology, ophthalmology, urology, gynecology, endocrinology, etc.—as well as disease based specializations such as oncology (for cancer), gerontology (for diseases of the aging) that each have their respective modes of treatment and therapy. The end result is
a medical model not unlike the legend from India about the 6 blind men who encountered an elephant.
