Medicine, Science, Arts and Friends: What do we make of the claims made by Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM)?

摘要

EDITOR'S NOTE: FSM is an Australian organisation that was formed at the end of 2011. It claims it has now more than 700 members from medical and other health and non-health related disciplines. The founders of FSM were concerned with 'pseudoscientific' health care that have wasted 'our taxes' in funding the treatment and the tertiary education of relevant courses. They claim that modern medicine should be based on 'scientific evidence of effectiveness', and complementary and alternative medicine is 'fraudulent', 'misleading' and 'comprising the health of the public'.So how do Chinese medicine practitioners think and respond to the claims made by FSM? We are fortunate to have a panel of experts from different fields to help us analyse and think of the recent events. They help us broaden our view on a number of aspects. What is medicine? What is science or knowledge? Is medicine science or arts? What is the evidence supporting FSM's claims? How rigorous FSM's methods are in arriving at their claims? What is tertiary education for? How is FMS compared with fundamentalism in religion?Our thoughts are very much stimulated by the panel's analysis and 'dissection. We hope you too find the discussion thought provoking.