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I’ve often wondered why it is that conventionally trained medical doctors are so reluctant to venture outside the limited thinking of conventional medicine. Why are they hesitant to adopt new ideas and new theoretical models for the underlying causes of human health or disease? I think I have at least a partial answer to this question: Doctors only succeed in medical school or in acquiring publication of their studies when they conform with the views and beliefs of their peers. In other words, becoming a successfuldoctorin today’s political-medical environment requires being a conformist. People who are independent thinkers are filtered out of the process early on .

This is a caricature of medical science and science in general. There are always new ideas, models, and theories being proposed and adopted. The cynicism of the above quote is a means of saying, "Hey, you won't listen to what I believe to be true because you want to hold on to what you believe to be true. Therefore, what you claim to be true, unlike what I claim to be true, is only rationalized self-interest, and the fact that you oppose me means that I'm the truly independent thinker and more likely to be right." In spite of examples, even in science, of people behaving like people, it's still a fairly juvenile argument to make.

One could write a history of science in reverse by assembling the solemn pronouncements of highest authority about what could not be done and could never happen.

Robert A. Heinlein

(I always liked that quote)

“This is a caricature of medical science and science in general.”

Couldn’t agree more... If his thesis was correct we’d still be practicing alchemy and bleeding people.

With regard to medicine there’s thousands of people practicing and millions using “alternative medicine” from acupuncture to homeopathy to herbal treatments to shamanism to prayer to meditation and so on.

The reason these techniques are not as widely accepted as “mainstream” medicine is because they don’t work - at least for the vast majority of people. Were any to prove consistently effective, believe me, they would quickly gain widespread acceptance and use.

"This is a caricature of medical science and science in general. There are always new ideas, models, and theories being proposed and adopted."

Well, it might exaggerate somewhat, but the problem described is very real. Medicine isn't my field, but I recall the "ulcers/H.Pylori" saga. In geology, "plate tectonics" is a good example. I'm sure there have been others in medicine and geology as well as other fields. And I've seen serious academic discussions about how science could do a better job of recognizing "outside the box" but nevertheless real discoveries. One proposal is for journals to actually reserve some small part of their space specifically to explore "fringe issues".

"This is a caricature of medical science and science in general. There are always new ideas, models, and theories being proposed and adopted."

Well, it might exaggerate somewhat, but the problem described is very real. Medicine isn't my field, but I recall the "ulcers/H.Pylori" saga. In geology, "plate tectonics" is a good example. I'm sure there have been others in medicine and geology as well as other fields. And I've seen serious academic discussions about how science could do a better job of recognizing "outside the box" but nevertheless real discoveries. One proposal is for journals to actually reserve some small part of their space specifically to explore "fringe issues".