Homeopathy degree suspended after criticism
The undergraduate degree in homeopathic medicine at the University of Central Lancashire has stopped recruiting new students after "relentless attacks from the anti-homeopathy league".
The course leaders, Kate Chatfield and Jean Duckworth, blamed low recruitment levels for the decision not to enrol new students on to the course this year or in 2009.
But academics against the "pseudo-science" degrees, led by Prof David
Colquhoun, a pharmacologist at University College London, are claiming the move as the "first major victory in the battle for the integrity of universities".
Still, adherents to homeopathy will persist because, frankly, you don't need a degree in the U.S. to sell this kind of fantasy snake oil - just a cleverly worded advertisement.
Way to go, Brits.
2 comments:
Much of this success depended on persistent use of the Freedom of Information Act, which, though resisted strongly, has revealed some of the absurd things that are taught on these courses. The other factor was a fairly small group of people writing blogs and getting into the media a constant stream of articles that show what hokum homeopathy really is. Rational reasoning doesn't seem to work. You have to go for the jugular.
When I tried the same trick at Yale, it wasn't so successful because Yale is exempt from the US Freedom of Information Act. Fortunately it wasn't needed because they themselves put on YouTube some of the evidence, from which I clipped a few of the silliest bits, into a short movie, integrarive baloney @ Yale. The contention that we need a more " fluid concept of evidence" has become notorious since then (try Googling it). Nevertheless, thus far you can still get points for continuing medical education at Yale for listening to this woo. More pressure is still needed from US medicine!
It appears that stupidity of some vested interests thriving on throw aways from MNC pharma companies has succeeded for the time but Homoeopathy will remain!
Post a Comment