Loizzo J J, Blackhall L J
Columbia University Dharam Hinduja Indic Research Center, and Center for Meditation and Healing, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, New York, USA.
J Altern Complement Med. 1998 Fall;4(3):311-9. doi: 10.1089/acm.1998.4.3-311.
Traditional medical systems, like those preserved in Asia, pose a challenge because they involve theories and practices that strike many conventionally trained physicians and researchers as incomprehensible, even nonsensical. Should modern medicine continue to dismiss these systems as unscientific, therefore worthy of debunking rather than serious study; view them as sources of alternatives, possibly effective but hidden in a matrix of prescientific custom and belief; or do they represent something like a complementary science of medicine? We make the latter argument using the example of Indo-Tibetan medicine. Indo-Tibetan medicine is based on analytic models and methods that are rationally defined, internally coherent, and make testable predictions, therefore meeting current definitions of "science." The possibility of multiple, complementary sciences is a consequence of certain findings in physics that have led to a view of science as a set of tools-instruments of social activity that depend on learned agreement in aims and methods-rather than as a monolith of absolute objective truth. Implications of this pluralistic view of science for medical research and practice are discussed.
传统医学体系，比如那些在亚洲得以留存的体系，构成了一项挑战，因为它们所涉及的理论和实践让许多接受传统训练的医生和研究人员觉得难以理解，甚至荒谬可笑。那么，现代医学究竟应该继续将这些体系斥为不科学，因而值得揭穿而非认真研究；将它们视为替代方法的来源，可能有效但隐藏在科学前习俗和信仰的矩阵之中；还是它们代表了某种类似医学补充科学的东西呢？我们以印藏医学为例来论证后者。印藏医学基于经过合理定义、内部连贯且能做出可检验预测的分析模型和方法，因此符合“科学”的当前定义。多种互补科学的可能性是物理学中某些发现的结果，这些发现导致了一种将科学视为一套社会活动工具的观点——这些工具依赖于在目标和方法上达成的学术共识——而不是视为绝对客观真理的统一体。本文讨论了这种多元科学观对医学研究和实践的影响。
