About the Article
Published in:
Vol. 4, No. 1
Category:
Analyses
About the Author
Wallace Sampson, Editor
Can Alternative Treatments Induce Immune Surveillance over Cancer in Humans?
A Historical Approach to U.S. Trends in Alternative Medicine Use
Postmodern Medicine
A special seminar section on postmodernism (PM) in a medical journal may require an explanation. Several papers in this issue tackle the proposal that the recent acceptance of the sometimes absurd, often pseudoscientific aspects of alternative medicine (AM) is due to a changed “paradigm” in thinking about what is so and what is not so. A system of relativity of truth, of fact, and of existence itself has been presented to and indoctrinated into two generations of university students and professionals. The system is called postmodernism. Students educated for the past four decades have now become our reporters and editors, producers, lawyers, judges and legislators, academicians and writers, and heads of major granting agencies. These professionals occupy positions in medical schools as well as in the social sciences of most major universities.
We present several essays from nursing, medicine, and sociology to define and describe postmodernism in common language with a minimum of esoteric philosophy and a maximum of applicability. We acknowledge the many interested scientists and academic philosophers who could have written on PM. Some have authored articles and books. A collection of essays can be read in Flight from Science and Reason by Paul Gross and Norman Levitt.1
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