Foundation Professorship - Nothing but Nonsense?
In the 19th and the first third of the 20th century, Germany and Austria were not only the pacemakers of science but also prolific producers of ideologies and occult thinking systems. The Germans not only had Koch, Einstein, Planck and Behring but also Hahnemann, Marx, Freud, Reich, Hitler and Steiner. German pseudoscience was as successfully exported as German pharmaceutical products. After the Second World War Germany's leadership in science faded and so did the German production of new pseudoscientific systems. However, the old ones lingered on and increased in strength following the breakdown of moral and common sense in 1968. Astonishingly, there are currently six British universities, which offer BSc degrees in homeopathy. Siegfried Bär
(Apr 8th 2007) Matters are even worse in the country where homeopathy was invented. Recently, the Karl and Veronica Carstens Foundation granted a five-year foundation professorship to the university hospital Charité in Berlin. The foundation will pay a total of one million euros, which covers the salary of a W2 professor (the German equivalent of a senior lecturer) and two assistants. The task of the professor is to, "...give new impulses for top research in 'natural' healing, homeopathy and traditional Chinese medicine".
The position will be located in the Charité's Institute of Social Medicine. The director of this institute is Stefan Willich. He commented, "Our aim is the further strengthening of research in complementary medicine. The Carstens Foundation professorship shall take over the lead and coordinate and consolidate future activities".
The Carstens Foundation was set up in 1982 by the wife of former German president, Karl Carstens, with the aim of integrating homeopathy and other pseudosciences into the universities and, subsequently, to boost their reputation. The Foundation is supported by the Association Nature and Medicine, which has about 40 000 members. To reach its aims, the Carstens Foundation seems to use the same strategy, which the Anthroposophists, an occult movement, have applied to install their followers at Kassel University (see article "Occultists conquer Kassel University" on this homepage).
Strangely, university authorities and scientific establishments appear to have reacted somewhat indifferently to these activities - at least officially. After all, during the 200 years since its founder, Hahnemann, had his first publications edited, homeopathy has never been proven in over one hundred trials - neither in independent double-blinded patient studies nor in pharmaceutical tests. Furthermore, in the light of modern scientific theories, which are based on hundreds of years of experimentation, the theoretical basis for homeopathy appears abstruse to the extent that further trials are unlikely to produce any tangible results. An open attitude to complementary medicine is all very well but somebody trying to scientifically prove homeopathy is on a futile mission, like trying to throw an apple to the moon for the umpteenth time. This doesn't demonstrate openness but obsession or something worse! The Charité seems to be embracing a professorship based on nonsense!
What are the driving forces behind this strange behaviour?
One force is the current popularity of pseudoscience. Another is one of simple greed - not displayed by the Charité but by those who were pushing to integrate the professorship within the Charité faculty. A proportion of the 40 000 Nature and Medicine Association members are "alternative healers" and other professionals who make money with homeopathy. The money made with homeopathy is something in the range of hundreds of millions of euros. With academic credentials the financial gain is likely to increase, turning over not just millions but also billions. Homeopathy has never truly helped any patient beyond the placebo effect, although there's no doubting its alchemist powers: It turns water into gold!
To be fair, in their early days, the Carstens Foundation also financed and published research, which led to unfavourable results for homeopathy. From 1993 to 1997 it paid €150,000 for work by Gunda Herberth and Ulrich Pison "Homeopathic remedies in cell biological systems". In a defined cell biological setting, dose-response curves of so-called "homeopathic high potentials" were produced. Herberth and Pison summarised: As a result of our examination we could not deduct a reliable scientifically based mode of action for homeopathic high potentials.
The persons behind the establishment of the homeopathy professorship are the director of the Carstens Foundation and the Director of the Institute for Social Medicine, Stefan Willich. The latter is a cardiologist but probably not a researcher at heart. This may be concluded from his MBA qualification, obtained in 1995, and his openly declared aim to work in industry or consulting. In the institute for social medicine he occupies a position between management and medicine. Interestingly, since 2003 Willich has also been cooperating with the private Anthroposophical Institute for Applied Epistemology and Medical Methodology in Bad Krozingen, Germany. Together with the institute's director and Renatus Ziegler, an anthroposophist and Steiner disciple, Willich has published at least eight articles in three years. The most recent publication is entitled, "Anthroposophic therapy for chronic depression: A four year prospective cohort study". The summary reads: In outpatients with chronic depression, anthroposophic therapies were followed by long-term clinical improvement. Although the pre-post design of the present study does not allow for conclusions on comparative effectiveness, study findings suggest that the anthroposophic approach, with its recourse to non-verbal and artistic exercising therapies, can be useful for patients motivated by such therapies. In other words, there are no adequate controls! Therefore, particularly in light of the significant susceptibility of depression patients to placebo effects, the study seems worthless. I assume that the main purpose of this study was to slip Anthroposophy into a more-or-less serious journal. Be this as it may, but Willich's established contact to anthroposophical circles also seems to suggest that these circles may have been behind the infiltration strategy via foundation professorships, which worked so well in Kassel. This is, however, pure speculation!
The dean of the Charité, Martin Paul, declared to Lab Times online that the foundation professorship would be filled by the faculty and according to scientific standards. If the search commission doesn't find a person who meets these standards, there will be no professorship. Furthermore, the position will be publicly announced. Martin Paul is the chairman of the search commission and Stefan Willich is a member. The Carstens Foundation acts only in an advisory capacity. Hopefully, the commission will reach a result, of which Behring and Koch need not be ashamed.
