Scepticism in medicine, organ transplantation, gene and stem cell therapy

Abstract

The journey from scepticism to acceptance has a remarkably predictable history. The initial hypothesis is treated with disbelief and dismissed by the experts and the individual responsible may be shunned or even persecuted. When the hypothesis is validated with scientific evidence, the concept is accepted and the next stage is for the previously scoffing experts to develop a specific memory loss and claim that they knew that it was true all along. The last stage usually involves one of the most strident early sceptics to claim that he had thought of it in the first place, and the originator is ushered into obscurity. Although this is a common tale, the original scepticism is usually based on received wisdom and this raises the ambiguity of scepticism, on the one hand the questioning of received wisdom but in the example above scepticism is actually initiated and fuelled by received wisdom. © 2012 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.