Absence of evidence Vs Evidence of absence
03.11.09
It took nearly fifteen hundred years for the medical community to realize that Galens hypothesis of the blood circulating from the liver, propounded in 127AD, was wrong. It was in the 17th Century, William Harvey wrote his de Motu Cordis. (1628 AD) In the field of astronomy it took five Centuries for scientists to realize the folly of Ptolemys hypothesis that the sun goes round the earth. Copernicus, in the 7th Century, came on the scene to show that the earth, in fact, goes round the sun! Reductionist science that we follow in medical research does not work in the dynamic human system.However, we cling to despite evidence to the contrary, as it has become a lucrative business trillion. We assume, wrongly, however, that the absence of evidence is the same as evidence of absence. Therefore, we refuse to accept anything that challenges the reductionist statistical inferences. Evidence based medicine has now become a burden of proof instead.
Even if I already made this observation repeatedly over the last four decades, medical science has never taken seriously.The movement has gained respectability, once the Institute of Medicine report of the United States have clearly shown the medical procedures in hospitals as the third leading cause of death next only to heart attacks and cancer and the effects undesirable as the fourth leading cause. (JAMA 2000, 284: 483-485) There is now a global movement to establish the right of science in medicine healing whole person. This has been practiced for "time out of mind" in the traditional healing systems of Ayurveda.Methods latest scientific have been able to establish the validity of many other complementary systems of medicine like homeopathy, naturopathy, Siddha, medicine of energy, faith healing, Reiki, Qi gong, acupuncture and the rapid healing methods of India and the Sufi saints, reconstituted water therapy and so on.
Source: Mangalorean.com
