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CONFERENCE REPORT]

medicine” exploits the confusion ‘Quackademic Medicine’: Teaching about placebos. It makes vague use of the term “healing” and plays into the in Medical Schools branding and marketing of “comple- mentary and ” A problem of serious concern to skeptics cine.” Gorski’s succinct take? “Integrative med- (see adjacent sidebar about the pseu- these days is the rapid perfusion of pseudo- icine = science + magic.” doscience in medical schools). An ex- science into medical schools. This practice is Major medical schools like the University of ample of the exploitation of placebo eagerly promoted by proponents of so-called Maryland and George town have been integrat- confusion is the often heard statement alternative medicine and increasingly allowed ing CAM throughout their curriculum and even that “Acu punc ture works—as a by a medical education culture not alert to into basic science courses. This has proven placebo.” That, said Novella, “just what’s at stake. popular. “Bioener getic medicine” is another means that the outcome was nega- Prominent physicians in the skeptical new term, allowing the teaching of such non- tive.” So what’s the harm? Ex tolling movement brought the practice into the spot- scientific concepts as a “vital force” and “qi.” a placebo is “installing bizarre, unsci- light in a major CSICon symposium on the “This is the foot in the door . . . like the entific, mystical, nonscientific beliefs problem. Trojan Horse,” said Gorski. Har vard, Michigan, in patients.” and the Cleve land Clinic are all welcoming In case you didn’t know it, the these intrusions of questionable medical world was supposed to end on De- concepts into their curricula. Often the cry is heard to “treat the whole cember 21, 2012. The myth of an im- and patient.” “This pisses me off,” said Gorski. “That’s pending apocalypse on that date— what doctors already do,” he notes. “And it cre- drawing on everything from the other concerned ates a false dichotomy: You don’t need to use Mayan calendar to supposed Sumer- physicians see an to ‘treat the whole patient.’” ian or biblical predictions, to worries increasing hostility He and other concerned physicians see about comets or the nonexistent an increasing hostility toward science-based planet Nibiru, to pole shifts, planetary toward science medicine. One commentator even has called alignments, and solar flares—infected based medicine. evidence-based healthcare “micro fascism.” credulous websites across the Internet Contributing to the problem is the relative and worried the hell out of a signifi- One commentator indifference of most physicians, what Gorski cant share of the world’s population even has called refers to as a “shruggie,” a person who (10 percent of Americans, according doesn’t care. “Most doctors just don’t care.” to a Reuters poll). Things got so bad evidence-based “SkepDoc” , a frequent SI con- that in the first week of December the healthcare tributor, said what’s happening in medical Russian government put out an an- “micro fascism.” schools is a reflection of what’s happening in nouncement that the world would not society overall. The view is, in short, “We don’t end later that month, and in the need no stinkin’ intellectuals” and “We don’t United States NASA did much the need no education—we have Google.” Other same thing. factors include the ideas that positive thinking Come to think about it, as I write One good label for the infiltration of pseu- makes it so and “my facts are as good as any up these notes in mid December, it’s doscience into medical schools is “Quacka- others,” a distrust for authority, looking for an probably all for naught, but in the oft demic Medi cine,” a term coined by physician easy solution, postmodernism (truth is rela- chance the world continues after the Robert W. Don nell. In the CSI symposium, can- tive), and a rising acceptability of doctor- winter solstice, I’ll continue. Planetary cer surgeon David Gorski, who edits the Sci- bashing. scientist David Morrison, as SI read- ence-Based Medicine website, used that term She told the story of a retired physician approvingly. He noted that quackery has un- who took up and soon found it ers know, has been at the forefront of dergone a linguistic evolution, a “major re- working on everything. Wrote this doctor: trying to rebut these rumors, provid- branding of quackery.” What forty years ago was “There is nothing like personal experience to ing accurate scientific information properly called “unscientific medicine” began convince one of an effect.” Hall noted that he through NASA’s “Ask an Astrobiolo- to be called, in the 1970s and 1980s, “alter- made a litany of common mistakes: confir- gist” website, CSI’s website, and in ar- native medicine.” (He considers that simply mation bias, using biased sources, not rec- ticles and other forums. He spoke at “unproven” and “often, disproven” practices.) ognizing how charisma can influence your CSICon Nashville. “Com ple mentary and Alter n ative Medicine” view, cherry-picking the data, not under- The whole thing would be silly (CAM) came along in the 1990s, and now standing why science is necessary, relying on and laughable except that Morrison there is another rebranding: “Inte gra tive Medi- personal experience, the cause-effect fallacy, gets pained messages from children

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the ancient wisdom fallacy, and relying on the so caught up in these beliefs that they Sharon Hill, using lively illustra- personal experience of others. “The plural of tell him they are contemplating sui- tions, spoke on “How to Think about anecdote is not evidence,” Hall commented. cide or killing their pets to spare them Weird News.” Hill, a geologist by She lamented that critical thinking is not taught in medical schools. from the devastation. training, does the Doubtful News blog , another frequent contrib- Morrison recounted some of these and writes a column on CSI’s website utor to SI and to Science-Based Medicine, re- messages and the “conflation of a va- called “Sounds Science-y.” (An SI ar- iterated Gorski’s view that misleading lan- riety of threads” of non-fact-based ticle on that subject by Hill appeared guage contributes to giving nonscientific and belief about all of it. in our March/April 2012 issue.) pseudoscientific medical practices a free “None of these ‘facts’ is true,” he “I’m a ‘weird news’ junky,” she said. pass. Terms such as “allopathic,” “holistic,” emphasized. “No scientist supports “Weird news is my favorite conversa- “complementary,” “alternative,” “integrative,” any of these claims. None of these tion topic.” Weird news makes for a and “Western” all mislead. stories is covered in newspapers or good story, she says: “Mystery is mon- Atwood raised a reasonable question: TV.” It has been almost entirely an gered. The wow factor is stressed. ... “Why discuss implausible claims at all?” He Internet phenomenon. TV and entertainment is our new mis- believes medical schools should teach sci- As for a supposed galactic align- information highway.” entific . There are also important lessons in the history of medicine that can be taught, like the downfall of bloodletting and the “pre-scientific practices” that persist Videos are hoaxed, birds fall from the sky, today, such as , where teaching about Avogadro’s number could help stu- strange sounds are heard, dead carcasses dents understand homeopathy’s innate im- of normal animals are claimed to be demonoids plausibility. Skepti cism, with its emphasis on logical fallacies and its insistence that clear or monsters. Sharon Hill’s site has a whole thinking should trump pseudoscience, has category called “underwater mysteries.” great value. As for worries that it may be impolite or impolitic to raise such issues, Atwood said, “Clear thinking should not be sacrificed on the altar of politeness.” ment, “I don’t know what an align- She considers the main audience for It is a question of , he em- ment is. It’s not a term used by as- her Doubtful News site “the critical phasized: “Implausi ble treatments are uneth- tronomers. There is no alignment in thinking community.” The topics she ical. Deceptive placebos are unethical. And human studies of highly implausible claims December. There is no core of fact to examines are endless, the sources piti- are unethical.” this. These things are not going to ful: “Real things entwined with Eugenie C. Scott was the only non-physi- happen.” wrongness.” Videos are hoaxed, birds cian who spoke. As executive director of the Says Morrison: “It’s all part of a fall from the sky, strange sounds are National Center for Science Education (and mindset that believes in prophecy.” heard, dead carcasses of normal ani- a physical anthropologist) she has great con- Morrison labels this new outlook mals are claimed to be demonoids or cerns about allowing more and more pseu- “Cosmophobia—the fear of the end of monsters. She has a whole category doscience into medical schools. “It will mise- the universe.” People who believe it are called “underwater mysteries.” Then ducate students,” she said. As for academic getting all their “information” on there are the quack cancer cures, al- freedom, that is important, she noted, be- YouTube and elsewhere on the Inter - ways a problem for science-minded cause it allows teachers to teach unpopular net. The problem has been exacerbated skeptics (“There is almost no way to ideas and to challenge students. But there is by the fact that “science shows on cable write about them without sounding also “academic judgment,” she insisted. TV have gotten a lot worse.” Assuming heartless”), bogus consumer products, “The issues are quite profound.” short attention spans, the trend now, and emotional appeals. You’d think it’d The plans a future article even on mainstream channels, is to be all tire Hill out. But she’s still enthusi- on how nonscientific concepts are making their “hyper-exciting,” with explosions, im- astic. “I’m pretty dedicated to not way into the education of physicians. —K.F. pacts, and so on every ninety seconds. missing something good.” The conspiracy meme doesn’t Scott O. Lilienfeld had the “honor” help, says Morrison. “People afraid of of being the conference’s final speaker, the government in one area have but he performed his task so well no spread it to every topic.” one’s interest wavered. “It has been an

18 Volume 37 Issue 2 | Skeptical Inquirer