http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2012/04/20/a-very-small-amount-of-relevance/ Journal of Medical Ethics blog Thu, 18 Apr 2013 03:49:59 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2012/04/20/a-very-small-amount-of-relevance/#comment-4467 Keith Tayler Mon, 23 Apr 2012 17:13:00 +0000 http://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/?p=1712#comment-4467 I agree that homeopathy needs to be exposed by science. This is not made easier by the increasing celebritization of scientists which is, as you point out, used by the apologists for homeopathy to legitimise their pseudo-science. Being a Nobel prize winner appears to make you an expert in just about everything including the future. Top TV boffins and pot boiler authors can make wild unsubstantiated speculations and pass them off as science. There has always been a lot ipse dixit “knowledge” in science and the pseudo-sciences have always been quick to exploit any weakness within science. Scientists need to recognise and critically engage with the pseudo-sciences, which might, as is the case with homeopathy, require them to try and understand more about this belief system and how it presents itself. The same goes for ethicists, which means of course homeopathy should have a reply to Smith’s paper. 　

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