Why homoeopathy is pseudoscience.
Homoeopathy is commonly recognised as pseudoscience. However, there is, to date, no systematic discussion that seeks to establish this view. In this paper, we try to fill this gap. We explain the nature of homoeopathy, discuss the notion of pseudoscience, and provide illustrative examples from the l...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 200; no. 5; pp. 1 - 30 |
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| Autores principales: | , |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Springer Nature
Oct2022
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=159113864&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 159113864 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Oct2022 vid: 200 iid: 5 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 159113864 10.1007/s11229-022-03882-w ppf: 1 ppct: 29 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 474KB tig: atl: Why homoeopathy is pseudoscience. aug: au: Mukerji, Nikil Ernst, Edzard affil: Faculty of Philosophy, Scientific Theory, and the Study of Religion, LMU München, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539, Munich, Germany Gesellschaft zur wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften e. V. (GWUP), Arheilger Weg 11, 64380, Rossdorf, Germany University of Exeter, Exeter, UK sug: keyword: Bullshit Homoeopathy Pseudoscience Rationality Reason Science ab: Homoeopathy is commonly recognised as pseudoscience. However, there is, to date, no systematic discussion that seeks to establish this view. In this paper, we try to fill this gap. We explain the nature of homoeopathy, discuss the notion of pseudoscience, and provide illustrative examples from the literature indicating why homoeopathy fits the bill. Our argument contains a conceptual and an empirical part. In the conceptual part, we introduce the premise that a doctrine qualifies as a pseudoscience if, firstly, its proponents claim scientific standing for it and, secondly, if they produce bullshit to defend it, such that, unlike science, it cannot be viewed as the most reliable knowledge on its topic. In the empirical part, we provide evidence that homoeopathy fulfils both criteria. The first is quickly established since homoeopaths often explicitly claim scientificity. To establish the second, we dive into the pseudo-academic literature on homoeopathy to provide evidence of bullshit in the arguments of homoeopaths. Specifically, we show that they make bizarre ontological claims incompatible with natural science, illegitimately shift the burden of proof to sceptics, and mischaracterise, cherry-pick, and misreport the evidence. Furthermore, we demonstrate that they reject essential parts of established scientific methodology and use epistemically unfair strategies to immunise their doctrine against recalcitrant evidence. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2022. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2022 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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