The Politics of Science

摘要

From time to time Chinese medicine has been attacked because, so it is claimed, it is not scientific. Recendy an organisation calling itself Friends of Science in Medicine (FSM) has been established. It says that its aim is 'to reverse the current trend which sees government-funded tertiary institutions offering courses in the health care sciences that are not underpinned by sound scientific evidence'. This organisation is not very specific about which universities or which programmes they have in mind, and they appear to lump together most, if not all forms, of 'complementary medicines'. I think that there are several issues involved here that readers of this journal need to think about.