UD has been following the effort of legitimate scientists in Australia to keep pseudo-science out of university classrooms there.
I mean, it’s already in. There’s lots of reflexology and aromatherapy and shit in Australian university curricula. The Friends of Science in Medicine are trying get some of that out, and to prevent new stuff from entering.
The real leader in these legitimizing efforts is England, which has not only been making it more difficult for doctors there to throw antidepressants around like candy (for many people, they seem to be expensive, side-effect-ridden, placebos), but has also made it “no longer … possible to receive degrees in alternative medicine from publicly funded universities.”
UD‘s US of A has also been good at keeping out the pseuds (see Florida State’s successful battle to break the back of the chiropractors), but backwaters like Australia will take longer to grasp the concept of empiricism. We must be patient with them.
In time, Australia will do what we’ve done here – establish a system of diploma mills that hand out Decompression Therapy degrees.
Some of the arguments the cornered pseuds make are quite something. One popular line is that you want pseuds in college rather than out, because they may as well get some training – it’s less dangerous to the general population that way. As the head of an Aussie pseud group pompously puts it: “In order to safeguard the public, practitioners of these modalities need to be part of the same rigorous training and education as other health professionals.” Yeah and there’s mucho, mucho modalities out there, aren’t there… So… you want to safeguard the population by putting all the modalities in the university. Millions of people organize their lives around what astrologers tell them, and yet we have no way of being sure those astrologers are properly trained, so we need to offer PhDs in astrology.
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UD thanks Dirk.
March 5th, 2012 at 5:46PM
I was going to mention the Astrology degrees that one can obtain from Kepler College in Seattle, but according to their website: “Economic realities prevented Kepler from completing its push for accreditation and we are only authorized through March 9, 2012 in order to give our current students time to graduate.”
March 5th, 2012 at 6:27PM
Jeff: Shouldn’t Kepler have been able to foresee that?
March 5th, 2012 at 6:58PM
Backwaters? We must be patient with them? Like developmentally challenged children I assume?
March 5th, 2012 at 7:13PM
Just having a little fun, David. Joking.
March 5th, 2012 at 7:31PM
That’s funny! Johannes Kepler, so well known for the laws of planetary motion, was also a court astrologer! Typical for his time, of course. Can their be any connection between Kepler College and the famous physicist/mathematician?
March 5th, 2012 at 9:36PM
Of interest:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/03/on-the-continuing-oxymoron-of-ethics-at-harvard.html
March 5th, 2012 at 10:45PM
Shane, Kepler College was named after Johannes Kepler. In addition to his legitimate scientific discoveries, he was the astrologer to the Emperor (and generally a kook).
March 6th, 2012 at 8:08AM
Jeff: thanks! I went to their website after reading your first entry and didn’t find anything specific about their founding or naming. What a crazy world. If I found an institution, say Caligula University, I wonder what I can get away with. We will specialize in the intersection of power, perversity, and government. Former Rep. Anthony Wiener will be our first provost. Possibilities, possibilities.
March 6th, 2012 at 9:28AM
Shane: LOL. Caligular Studies.
March 25th, 2012 at 12:23PM
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