"We need new thinking in science and medicine, like the following written by our CNHS director, Dr. Bernhard Juurlink:...

We need new thinking in science and medicine, like the following written by our CNHS director, Dr. Bernhard Juurlink:

"A drive in science is a search for patterns that are meaningful from the disparate data sensed by our sensory receptors, or extensions of such receptors. This is true in the ‘simpler’ hard sciences like physics as well as in the softer, ‘more complex’ biomedical sciences. Once a meaningful pattern is recognized it is seized upon in an almost desperate fashion to build a model of the phenomena being studied. As in Greek mythology, a meaningful cosmos is organized out of the chaos. Similarly, the chaotic phenomena associated with human diseases are searched for meaningful patterns. Once such patterns become recognized, a working model of the disease processes is constructed. Once such a model is constructed one is almost forced by the formal education-induced architecture of one’s brain to look at the phenomena associated with the disease only in terms of the model constructed. Another factor supporting focus on the model is the industrial-research complex that has developed around developing disease therapies. Data about the disease of interest that are not congruent with the model are no longer seen: one develops tunnel vision. If the model of the disease is reasonably ‘correct’ such tunnel vision results in rapid advances in the development of therapies to treat the disease. If the model is not reasonably ‘correct’ then such tunnel vision impedes the development of therapies for the disease. In this paper I discuss how tunnel vision may be impeding the development of effective treatment for multiple sclerosis, a neurological disorder. Such tunnel vision problems are present in every area of human endeavor."

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bernhard_Juurlink3/publication/268488292_SCIENTIFIC_HUBRIS_AND_THE_TUNNEL_VISION_DRIVEN_BY_LOOKING_WHERE_THE_LIGHT_IS_BRIGHTEST