This novel paradigm
John C McLachlan, professor of medical education at Durham, points out that it’s a common ploy to make nasty things more attractive by dressing them up with new names, like for instance changing the name of “complementary and alternative medicine” to “integrative medicine.” (That seems like a tricky one – you gain the flattering implications of “integrative” but you lose the at least as flattering implications of “alternative.” Decisions decisions.)
When there is tricksy wordplay going on, it may be time for another Sokal hoax. McLachlan sent a proposal to an International Conference on Integrative Medicine to be held in Jerusalem last October. It included this exciting observation:
Recently, as a result of my developmental studies on human embryos, I have discovered a new version of reflexology, which identifies a homunculus represented in the human body, over the area of the buttocks. The homunculus is inverted, such that the head is represented in the inferior position, the left buttock corresponds to the right hand side of the body, and the lateral aspect is represented medially. As with reflexology, the “map” responds to needling, as in acupuncture, and to gentle suction, such as cupping.
The organizers said ooh sounds exciting, send abstract; MacLachlan sent abstract; organizers said ooh lovely, you’re invited.
In short, they bit. They took seriously a claim that there is a homunculus in each human buttock and that this is of therapeutic and diagnostic significance.
It is good to know these things.
The diagram depicting the homunculus is absolutely priceless. I can never look at yoga poses the same way again!
I do not think this hoax compares favorably with the Sokal hoax. In the Sokal hoax, Sokal submitted a paper that was absolutely nonsensical. The journal’s decision to publish it showed that they could not even distinguish sense from nonsense.
In the present case, McLachlan unambiguously claims to have discovered something (“as a result of my developmental studies on human embryos, I have discovered a new version of reflexology, which identifies a homunculus represented in the human body, over the area of the buttocks”). Yes, the claim is a wild one, and that’s why this hoax is amusing, but what McLachlan claims is not *pure* nonsense as the Sokal paper was.
Given that difference, why shouldn’t the conference organizers invite McLachlan to present his findings? McLachlan’s point would have been made much better if he had submitted something more like the word salad Sokal sent to Social Text, and had that accepted.
Finally, speaking as someone who has actually been to a couple of alt-med conferences, I can tell you that I have seen presentations, by people who were serious, on more ridiculous topics than McLachlan’s buttunculus.
(Why have I been to more than one alt-med conference? I’m glad you asked. I do research on massage therapy, and that often gets lumped in with total woo, unfortunately.)
-CM
No wonder it’s of interest to the reflexologists. What’s good for a goose is good for a gander (at)…
Integrative is an exciting word for accommodationists and interfaith heads to get into the mainstream. Integrative is a nice word for religion and science buffs too. Integrative sounds a lot like tolerance and respect to me, and for all good things like multiculturalism and living in harmony. It all sounds so too good to be true and it is.
Christopher…but the two “disciplines” are not symmetrical, so it makes sense that the hoaxes would not be symmetrical either. The stuff Sokal parodied is all about word salad, while alt med does claim to discover things. Or to put it more crisply, Sokal was parodying a humanities item, while MacLachlan was parodying a sciencey item.
Oh, it absolutely is.
I guess you could call this a medical punk.
All I know is that when I practicice cupping upon a persons buttocks I makes sure I have permission. Otherwise I have nothing but positive things to say about the practice.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: This novel paradigm http://dlvr.it/BnZSr […]
I read this the other day on physorg and chuckled.
At the bottom of the page was an ad for “Quantum Medallions.” I LOLed.
Sokal’s paper was not entirely word salad either, though much of it was. He made several meaningful statements which were either blatantly false or true but with a damning spin.
What pisses me off is the extent to which this crap is tolerated in our medical communities. Reading Paul Offit’s Autism’s False Prophets, I was struck by how many of the perpetrators hold legitimate academic or medical center appointments, especially in the UK. If they were scientists, they would long ago have been disgraced and dismissed, but because they’re “practitioners”, nobody says anything. It’s like there’s an unspoken agreement not to interfere with the other guy’s racket.
Saikat Biswas
Yes. It is. Absolutely.
It’s the “enriching” bit that gets me. Am I alone in thinking that these people are looking for hope? Yes, I know that we all like enriching experiences and all that, but is that a measure of scientific merit?
Well that’s a must-read. He’s the guy wot wrote Making Monsters, if I’m not mistaken.
Ophelia, I think you have Richard Ofshe in mind. I haven’t read ‘Making Monsters’ but remember reading about his work in ‘The Demon-Haunted World’.
Well that will teach me to look it up instead of just saying “if I’m not mistaken.” I wonder what bad connection I was making…Maybe I linked the two of them in my mind in the past.
Could be; I have a link to an interview with him here (I have the link here, the interview was in The Nation).
If cupping needs to be done I imagine TSA has plenty of experts on hand. We’ll all have to get to the airport four hours (rather than two) before flight time when this becomes part of the “enhanced patdown”
I agree with Christopher Moyer that this particular hoax is not in the same league as Sokal’s one.
Reading about the two cases again however reminded me of something from last year when there was an incident where a few of us on this site were wondering whether a Sokal style hoaxing was occurring on another website. It took me a couple of minutes of thinking before I recalled which exact situation that was – It was the Tom Johnson – Exhibit A posts from Mooney.
Thanks Sigmund – that was my main point.
Something I remember from a while ago, which looked like it might be a Sokal-style hoax but turned out to be ‘real’, was Carolyn Guertin’s nonsensical writing.
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/823-is-this-another-sokal-hoax
-CM
Ah yes – we talked about Carolyn Guertin here too. The first comment was yours, Christopher. And Allen Esterson pointed out a Sokal-type comment on the Dawkins post which Guertin (who commented there) took at face value!