The international reputation and credibility of Australia’s universities is being undermined by the increase in “pseudoscientific” health courses, according to Alastair MacLennan, a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Adelaide, and Robert Morrison of Flinders University.
“Pseudoscientific courses sully the genuinely scientific courses and research conducted at the same institutions. Their scientists and students should be concerned by any retreat from the primacy of an experimental, evidence-based approach in science and medicine,” the academics wrote in an editorial published in the Medical Journal of Australia, The Conversation reported on 5 March.
The two academics are founding members of Friends of Science. In January this group sent a letter to Australian vice-chancellors asking them to review their health science courses, in order to ensure that scientific principles based on experimental evidence was given prime concern.