You can establish entire departments, entire schools, at a university. All you need is money and faculty and students. MIT has an Alchemy Department (or, rather, a door that says DEPARTMENT OF ALCHEMY).
About five years ago, chiropractors with money and political influence began establishing a chiropractic school at Florida State University. About ten years ago, a similar thing happened in Canada, at York University.
Science and medical professors at both schools brandished lawsuits and petitions and media appearances to make that idea go away, and they prevailed.
The latest effort of chiropractors to establish mainstream legitimacy through affiliation with a university is taking place in Australia. Some of the country’s highest-profile, most-respected scientists are furious at the University of Central Queensland. They are calling chiropractice anti-science nonsense, quackery, and superstition.
December 9th, 2011 at 9:02AM
Is this Department of Alchemy door an allusion to old game “The Lurking Horror”, or the converse?
December 9th, 2011 at 9:47AM
DM: I think it predates The Lurking Horror. But I’m not sure.