While medicine is solidly grounded on scientific areas such as biology and chemistry, some argue that it is in its essence not a science at all. With medicine playing a substantial societal role, addressing questions about the scientific nature of medicine is of obvious urgency. This paper takes on such a task and starts by consulting the literature on the “demarcation” problem in the philosophy of science. Learning from failures of earlier approaches, it proposes that we adopt a Deflated Approach, (...) which acknowledges that “science” is a family resemblance concept that admits differences of degrees to nonscientific undertakings. Then, drawing on Paul Hoyningen-Huene’s (Systematicity: The nature of science, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2013); (Synthese 196: 907–928, 2019) account of systematicity and Alexander Bird’s (Synthese 196: 863–879, 2019) analysis of examples from the history of medicine, the paper argues that medicine meets the requirement for systematicity on all dimensions and thereby qualifies as a science. The paper then considers and defuses two objections. First, it is shown that nonepistemic differences linked to the distinctive duality of medicine do not warrant thinking that medicine is not science. Second, against some recent criticism (Oreskes in Synthese 196: 881–905, 2019), the paper uses homeopathy as an example to show that (synchronic and diachronic) systematicity can succeed as a demarcation criterion. (shrink)

Financial conflicts of interest in medical research foster deviations from research standards and evidentially lead to the suppression of research findings that are at odds with commercial interests of pharmaceutical companies. Questionable research practices prevent data from being created, made available, or given suitable recognition. They run counter to codified principles of responsible conduct of research, such as honesty, openness or respect for the law. Resulting in ignorance, misrepresentation and suspension of scientific self-correction, suppression of medical evidence in its various (...) forms is both a threat to the epistemic and the moral integrity of medical science. This paper discusses an example of the suppression of medical evidence in recent influenza research and develops a conceptual framework for the description and assessment of questionable research practices applied in research and publication processes to suppress evidence. (shrink)

A key feature of Buchanan is emphasis put on the social impact of biomedical enhancement. This social turn enables Buchanan to reframe the question of the desirability of enhancers. The fundamental question is no longer an individual question but a social question: what would be the advantages and the drawbacks of X in our society? The individual question, in Buchanan’s analysis, is second to the social question. Now, if one accepts that an enhancer may have secondary effects, or drawbacks, the (...) social question requires a cost and benefit analysis. I will argue that there are two flaws in Buchanan’s position: 1) the way in which he envisions the social debate about biomedical enhancement, and a cost and benefit analysis, would only be adequate in a kind of utopia which no actual existing State seems to match; 2) The cost and benefit analysis needs to be complemented not by an individual ethics but by narratives accounting for the experience of the subject. The level on which takes place Buchanan’s discussion covers up an individual experience which needs to be articulated and taken into account. It is this kind of individual, or singular, narrative that I will look for in the work of the post-phenomenological philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, thus attempting to bridge a gap between two different philosophical traditions and styles of writing. (shrink)