Prince Charles, proud to be the Enemy of the Enlightenment.
Edzard Ernst has a new e book out: Charles, The Different Prince: An Unauthorized Biography. I wrote a whole reserve critique that will look in the up coming challenge of Skeptical Inquirer journal, but I required to give my visitors on Science-Centered Medicine a heads-up. Charles’ attempts to market different medication have been talked about quite a few moments on SBM, but readers might not recognize the depth of his folly. I know I did not, until finally I examine this e book. The full story has in no way been informed until eventually now.
Ernst uses Prince Charles’ have words to exhibit his ignorance of science and drugs. He thinks regular drugs is practically nothing but “pills and procedures”. At the age of 34, he had the chutzpah to lecture to the members of the British Healthcare Affiliation on the electricity of spiritualism, urging them to comply with their intuition rather than seem for scientific evidence. He has usually been intuitively averse to scientific materialism and was drawn to mysticism. He fell less than the affect of disreputable advisers these types of as Laurens van der Put up, who was a compulsive liar and who impregnated a 14-yr-outdated woman.
In addition to haranguing medical professionals, he has been lobbying politicians to get the NHS to pay out for option medication. The good news is, his endeavours have experienced minimal outcome.
He suggests “the evidence of practical experience is just as vital as scientific evidence”. He consistently falls for the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy and other reasonable fallacies. Ernst miracles if he is seriously that ignorant about science and logic, or if is this motivated ignorance, disregarding nearly anything that disagrees with his viewpoints.
Prince Charles is convinced that acupuncture and Gerson remedy are absolutely supported by scientific proof, and he endorses diagnostic approaches like foot reflexology, iridology, and pulse analysis, techniques that have been examined and demonstrated not to work. He is a agency believer in homeopathy.
Perhaps the worst matter is that he is proud of currently being known as “the enemy of the Enlightenment”. He is evidently anti-science. He calls for much more exploration into alternative drugs, but he does not imply what we suggest by research. He does not want exploration to inquire “if” a procedure is successful, he wishes it to exhibit that it is powerful, and that it would preserve cash (which it would not).
Ernst’s e book offers several much more fascinating particulars. I hope some of you will read through it. You may possibly be as shocked as I was.