There is a WeChat group called "Gao Talents Group", which has 500 Rugao people, all over all walks of life, both domestic and domestic, which can be described as a group of heroes. Not long ago, there was a lot of debate over the issue of "whether Chinese medicine is scientific", and the two sides insisted on their own opinions. The two sides of the debate are mainly professors and doctors, and they are some successful people who have a good high education and have made great achievements in various walks of life.
It can be seen that even the social elite has debated the question of whether Chinese medicine is scientific or not. Whether Chinese medicine is a science, this is a very simple question, why do some scholars who have learned the five cars also disagree on this? This is an interesting phenomenon that is worth studying.
Is TCM a pseudoscience?
First of all, let's look at the definition of "science": science is an ordered system of knowledge based on testable explanations and predictions about the form, organization, etc. of objective things, and is systematic and formulaic knowledge. Science must be empirical and predictive. Science allows questioning and stands up to scrutiny. Leon M. Lederman, the 1988 Nobel Laureate in Physics, summed up the nature of science as: immorality; creativity; development; simplicity; testability and identity.
Dialectical materialism holds that there is an essential difference between science and non-science and pseudoscience, and verifiability is the fundamental criterion that distinguishes science from pseudoscience. Non-science: propositions that do not satisfy precision and testability, and cannot be tested and evaluated using natural science methods; pseudoscience: non-science disguised as scientific forms.
Science must be empirical
Let's take a look at what TCM is all about. Chinese medicine is broad and profound, and it is not easy to say clearly in three words.
People who have systematically studied TCM acknowledge that the theoretical basis of TCM is the five elements of yin and yang. The Yin and Yang family is from the Alchemist. The so-called alchemists were originally the advisers of the aristocratic families during the Zhou Dynasty, and with the collapse of the Zhou Dynasty, these royal magic experts went into exile, recreated the old business, and became alchemists. According to Liu Xin's "Seven Strategies", the Book of Han and Art Divides the Alchemist's Magic Numbers into six types: Astronomy, Almanac, Five Elements, Turtle Turtle, Miscellaneous Occupation, and Morphology, and the third is the Five Elements. In the "Art Chronicle", it is said: "Its law also begins with the five virtues, and it is not possible to push it to the extreme." “
The earliest reliable record of the Five Elements is found in the Shangshu Hongfan, which has a history of more than 3,000 years. The five elements of yin and yang belong to the category of metaphysics.
alchemist
Traditional Chinese medicine has four classic works, the Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic, the Difficult Classic, the Treatise on Typhoid Fever and Miscellaneous Diseases, and the Shennong Materia Medica.
The "Difficult Classic", formerly known as the "Eighty-One Difficult Classics of the Yellow Emperor", also known as the "Eighty-One Difficulties", is an earlier surviving classic work of Chinese medicine. There have always been different views on the author and date of the book, and it is generally believed that it was written no later than the Eastern Han Dynasty, and the content may have a certain relationship with the Qin Yue people (Bian Que). During the Spring and Autumn Warring States period (770 BC - 221 BC), famous doctors emerged, and Bian Que invented the unique dialectical treatment of Chinese medicine, which was summarized as the "four diagnosis" method, that is, "looking, smelling, asking, and cutting". Even after the rapid development of science today, it is still widely used, which is an important basis for the dialectical treatment of traditional Chinese medicine; the "Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic" has laid the foundation for the understanding of human physiology, pathology, diagnosis and treatment, and is a medical work with great influence in China, known as the ancestor of medicine. Later generations are more recognized that this book was eventually formed in the Western Han Dynasty, and the author was not a single person, but was supplemented and developed by the inheritance and development of the Huang Lao physicians in successive Chinese dynasties; the famous medical scientists Zhang Zhongjing and Hua Tuo appeared in the Eastern Han Dynasty. Zhang Zhongjing perfected the dialectical theory of Chinese medicine, he was also the world's first clinical medical master, was revered as a medical saint, and eventually the medical books that were handed down were compiled by posterity as "On Typhoid Fever and Miscellaneous Diseases" and "Outline of the Golden Plateau". Zhang Zhongjing adopts the basic principles of dialectical theory and treatment, which is summarized in the "Treatise on Typhoid Fever" as "Eight Principles of Dialectics" and "Six Classics on Governance". The so-called "Eight Principles" (yin, yang, surface, li, cold, hot, virtual, and real) are summarized by using the "four diagnoses" (looking, smelling, asking, and cutting) to analyze and examine the parts and properties of diseases, and the "Six Classics on Treatment" is the specific application of the entire organ meridian theory in clinical medicine. After dialectical treatment through these two methods, the "eight methods" (sweat, vomit, lower, and, warm, clear, tonic, and elimination) are used to treat the disease. "Shennong Materia Medica", also known as "Materia Medica" or "Benjing", is said to have originated from the Shennong clan, passed down from generation to generation, assembled and sorted into a book in the Eastern Han Dynasty, the book was not a moment, the author was not a person, many medical scientists in the Qin and Han Dynasties collected, summarized, and sorted out the monographs on the results of pharmaceutical experience at that time, which was the first systematic summary of Chinese traditional Chinese medicine. Most of the chinese medicine theories and compatibility rules stipulated therein, as well as the principle of "seven emotions and harmony" proposed, have played a huge role in thousands of years of drug practice and are the source of the development of pharmacological theory of traditional Chinese medicine.
The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic
"Looking, smelling, asking, cutting" and "Eight Principles, Eight Laws" are the essence of TCM diagnosis and treatment.
"Looking, smelling, asking, cutting" and "eight principles, eight laws" do not meet the accuracy and testability, so Chinese medicine is non-scientific. If we have to put the language of "science" on Chinese medicine, we will naturally label it as "pseudoscience".
Saying that Chinese medicine does not belong to the category of science, is non-scientific, and there is no meaning to disparage Chinese medicine. Religion, philosophy, and art are not scientific, they are all non-scientific.
So, does TCM fall into the philosophical category?
Philosophy (Philosophy, Greek: Φιλοσοφία) is the study of fundamental and universal problems in the world, and is a theoretical system of worldviews. The world outlook is the general understanding of the nature of the world, the fundamental laws of development, the fundamental relationship between human thinking and existence, and other general basic issues, and the methodology is the theory about people's methods of understanding the world and transforming the world.
According to this definition, TCM does not seem to fall into the category of philosophy. However, philosophy and religion are polysemy terms. Philosophy and religion may have completely different meanings for different people. When people talk about philosophy or religion, the ideas that are associated with it can be very different. Mr. Feng Youlan, a famous contemporary philosopher and educator in China, said in the book "Xinyuan Dao: The Spirit of Chinese Philosophy": "The philosophy I am talking about is the idea of systematic reflection on life. Everyone, as long as he doesn't die, he's in life. But there are not many people who have reflective thoughts about life, and even fewer people who have systematic thoughts of reflection. The philosopher must be philosophical; that is, he must reflect on the thoughts of life and then express his thoughts systematically. "A thousand readers have a thousand Hamlets, and in that sense, of course, TCM can be classified as philosophical.
Philosophy and science are both ways we interpret the world, and another way of explaining the world is religion. Philosophy and science are related in that both solve problems with reason, but the difference between the two is that philosophy focuses on answering questions that transcend experience, while science focuses on solving problems within the scope of experience.
Traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine
W.C. Dampier in The History of Science and Its Relationship to Philosophy and Religion. The book "Original Preface" says: "The scientific method is mainly analytical, and phenomena must be explained as mathematically as possible and according to the concepts of physics. But we now know that the fundamental concepts of the physical sciences are abstractions formed by our minds in order to bring order and simplicity to a seemingly chaotic phenomenon. Therefore, through science to reality, we can only get a few different aspects of reality, we can only get pictures drawn with simplified lines, and we cannot get reality itself. "Science is not a panacea. The human body is an extremely complex system, and many diseases are beyond our experience. We cannot sit still until science makes progress. Philosophy is not science, it is a method of speculation. When science is powerless, philosophy can be used to solve problems. For example, the very common problem of tinnitus, go to Western medicine, otolaryngologists often can't say why, but Chinese medicine can often be dialectical treatment. However, the knowledge system of Chinese medicine also has weaknesses, such as helicobacter pylori, Western medicine lets you blow your breath to accurately diagnose and medicine to get rid of the disease, the "eight principles, eight methods" of Chinese medicine can not do accurate diagnosis and it is difficult to completely kill germs. Leaving aside the weaknesses of TCM, there is even some crap in the treasure house of TCM. The "Compendium of Materia Medica" contains a total of 1892 kinds of drugs, 11096 prescriptions, and some people list dozens of ridiculous prescriptions. For example, "Man wetting the bed: Take a lamp of hot rice, pour it on the bed, mix it with food, and do not let the sick know." '''Choking diaphragm is disgusting, and the medicines are ineffective: one dollar for true Awei, three dollars for dry people in the wild, for the end. Five more with ginger slices dipped in food, can pick up the dead. ''All these things, from ancient times to the present, have been passed down in a false manner. When we learn and inherit traditional Chinese medicine, we must take its essence and remove its dross.
Artemisinin
Chinese and Western medicine should not be mutually exclusive, using the means of Western medicine to tap the treasure house of Chinese medicine, it is possible to achieve great results for the benefit of mankind, artemisinin is a successful example. The modernization of traditional Chinese medicine has a long way to go, and it is neither arrogant nor blindly arrogant, but must seek truth from facts and keep pace with the times. Only in this way can traditional Chinese medicine continue to develop.