-Caveat Lector-
""The literature of modern medicine demands strict adherence to the rigors of
the scientific method: which includes strict intellectual honesty and integrity
and avoiding self-deception. ""
This is fine except how many times do the professionals indulge in activities
that would be best left on the drawing boards? Of course, there are varieties
of ways -- to approach infinity -- for "practicing" medicine but at what point
do they become means of 'self-deception' {"doing good", i.e.} or 'other-
deception' {giving hope when and where there might be little or none}.
Deification of the medical community to the point of acceptance by patients of
any and all treatments and procedures may approach the realm of the absurd.
There should be some sort of 'balance' yet the scales tip toward the 'provider'
rather than 'reason'. The article below examines a result of the deification
of the medicoes ("e" Dan?) in another emotionally charged issue. "'Cause the
doctor said so ?" AER
From NewsMax.CoM
Scientific Misconduct By Physician Propagandists: A Perspective On Gun
ViolenceMartin L. Fackler, MDSeptember 7, 1999
...learning how to not fool ourselves of having utter scientific integrity
is, I'm sorry to say, something that we haven't specifically included in any
particular course that I know of. We just hope you've caught on by osmosis.
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest
person to foolI'm talking about a specific, extra type of integrity that
is...bending over backwards to show how you're maybe wrong, that you ought to
have when acting as a scientist. And this is our responsibility as scientists,
certainly to other scientists, and I think to laymen.
Surely Youre Joking Mr. Feynman
(Feynman RP, New York, WW Norton, 1985, pp. 342-3)
The above citation by Richard Feynman illustrates one of the rigors of the
scientific method. Scientists who allow their intellect to be misled by their
emotions fall into the trap of fooling themselves into isolating their
preconceived strongly held desires and opinions from contradictory facts.
When scientists allow themselves to be drawn into political agendas their
heretofore rigorous scientific method is often replaced by a frenzy of
fanaticism. Are they fooling themselves, or is this conscious fraud?.
Distinguishing fraud from ignorance is often impossible, but whatever the
motivation, the effect of the misinformation is equally deleterious. The public
is most easily misled by political propaganda from highly respected sources.
An extensive, carefully documented study by Kates DB, Schaffer HE, Lattimer JK,
Murray GB, Cassem EH., Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic
of Propaganda? published in the Tennessee Law Review in 1995 (62(3):513-596)*
tells a sad and shocking story.
In the late 1970s, physicians from the American public health community
apparently saw the opportunity for publicity (which helps to obtain funding) in
the emotionally charged way the media presents, and dwells upon, violence
involving firearms. Despite lacking expertise about firearms and their effects,
and ignoring that crime (with or without guns) is clearly in the purview of the
criminologist, these physicians declared gun violence an "epidemic, and entered
into a campaign to remove firearms from the hands of the citizens of the United
States.
To further this goal, these physicians allied themselves with anti-gun political
lobbying organizations. Medical journals, including the Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA), and the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM)
became willing partners in this anti-gun advocacy. Most distressingly, the
taxpayer-funded Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has also joined
this medical anti-gun political cabal.
Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the resulting public health anti-gun
advocacy literature is emotionally driven and lacks scholarly detachment.
Prominent "researchers openly admit an overwhelming "hate of firearms yet,
contrary to the basic tenets of scientific method, they continue to do
"research on a subject about which their "hate precludes rational evaluation.
Grossly inaccurate hyperbole and failure to adhere to basic scientific method
seem to "slip through any editorial or peer review process so long as it
supports the anti-gun advocacy. And, when in print, these abuses are protected
from the corrective effects of dissent and criticism by editorial refusal to
publish corrections (Fackler, ML. JAMA Writes Politically Correct Wound
Ballistics History and Refuses to Publish Corrections Wound Ballistics Review
1996;2[3]:44-45).
Concrete examples of deception by half-truth, failure to address contrary data,
selecting and manipulating data to validate preordained conclusions, falsifying
references, fabricating statistics, overt fraud, and more, in the medical
