Good point, Martin.
And, of course, part of the reason it will last so long is that it isn't a debate--in which participants discuss opposing points. It is closer to the parallel play of young children.
Jim
James M. Walker, MD, FACP
Chief Health Information Officer
Geisinger Health System
If the human mind was simple enough to understand, we'd be too simple to understand it.
- Emerson Pugh
>>> "Martin Dawes, Dr." <[log in to unmask]> 1/6/2009 10:28 AM >>>
If we want some perspective on science and controversy can I bring to the table the anniversary of Darwin born 200 years ago, whose seminal book was published 150 years ago almost to the day. Intelligent design is rife in the United States where 47% of the population do not believe the evolutionary theory despite the evidence of many years work. What makes this particularly relevant to us is that without the theory of evolution we would not either have biology as we now know it or, for example, understand the mechanisms of drug metabolism.
While I am not suggesting complacency about this sort of ill informed criticism of EBM I do think it helps to know that we are not alone as scientists and that we are in for a very very very long debate.
Martin
-----Original Message-----
From: Evidence based health (EBH) [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Frances Gardner
Sent: 06 January 2009 08:52
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Special Issue: Evidence in Evidence-Based Medicine Fw: Social Epistemology
Donald
"A House Built on Sand" ed. Noretta Koertge-
good thinking- this is a very interesting book; for me it was an eye-opener
to find that people also criticise physics in some similar ways to EBP.
you can find some similar material on the web eg papers by Sokal:
http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~censor/katz-directory/01-07-17sokal-lingua-franca-experiment.pdf
or read an excerpt here, or buy it cheap on Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/0195117255/ref=sib_rdr_ex?ie=UTF8&p=S00N&j=0#reader-page
Frances Gardner
Professor of Child and Family Psychology
Fellow of Wolfson College
Department of Social Policy and Social Work
University of Oxford, 32 Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2ER, UK
tel 44 [0] 1865 270334 / 270325 fax 270324
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "donald stanley" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 1:27 PM
Subject: Re: Special Issue: Evidence in Evidence-Based Medicine Fw: Social
Epistemology - informaworld
> Most of you probably know that the debate goes on and on. It generates
> more
> titles similar to those heard at the MLA meetings beginning about 25 years
> ago.
>
> May I recommend a summary of & commentary on the current topic in:
>
> "A House Built on Sand"
> ed. Noretta Koertge
> ISBN 0-19-511725-5
>
> Sifting through the stream of ironies, tropes and neologisms Philip
> Kitcher
> tries to make some sense of what is salvageable.
>
> Donald Stanley
>
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