Is TCM a science? I hope to be professionally explained.

The Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, founded in 1955, was renamed as the Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine in June last year, and the word "Li" was specially added. It is said that this shows that the debate over whether Chinese medicine is scientific for many years is over. If this word game can end the argument, it will be too easy. Creationists in the United States set up the Institute of Creationism Science, but biologists still don't recognize Creationism as science. Similarly, although the biomedical community in the United States has a debate about whether some therapies of Chinese medicine (such as acupuncture) are effective, there is no debate about whether Chinese medicine is a science: it is not a science. For example, both the National Institutes of Health and the American Medical Association classify Chinese medicine and other messy folk medicine as "alternative medicine" and do not belong to medical science. The well-known anti-pseudoscience organization "the so-called scientific investigation committee on supernatural phenomena" (CSICOP) simply thinks that Chinese medicine is metaphysics, witchcraft and pseudoscience.

A general rebound of TCM supporters in the face of criticism is that critics don't understand TCM. It seems that only practitioners of TCM are qualified to criticize TCM. According to this logic, we can also say that only fortune tellers, feng shui "masters" and astrologers are qualified to criticize fortune telling, feng shui and astrology. To criticize whether a theory is scientific or not, we don't need to make an "enemy camp 18" and vice versa, and we don't even need to know its details, just measure its thoughts and methods according to general scientific standards. Especially in the case of modern medicine as a contrast, as long as you have modern medical knowledge, it is easier to judge the unscientific nature of Chinese medicine.

If we use some widely accepted inspection standards in philosophy of science, such as logical self-sufficiency, testability, falsifiability, testability, etc. Analyzing Chinese medicine, I think it is not difficult to draw the conclusion that Chinese medicine is not scientific. I don't want to do this boring theoretical analysis of "what is science" here. I just want to explain why Chinese medicine is not science from another angle, and in turn explain "what is science".

Science pays attention to innovation and never worships the past. Therefore, there is no classic in science that everyone must read and believe. Unless modern medical students are interested in medical history, no one will study the works of Hippocrates, Galen, Visuri and Harvey. Being unfamiliar with classic works will not affect their medical practice at all. No one in modern medical papers will take the quotations of sages as arguments and prove their correctness by quoting classics. Chinese medicine is not like this. Ancient documents such as Huangdi Neijing, Treatise on Febrile Diseases and Synopsis of the Golden Chamber are the supreme classics that TCM students must read, memorize and believe, and are the basis for their diagnosis and prescription. Papers of traditional Chinese medicine are often just to clarify and textual research these classics. So Chinese medicine is more like a humanities subject than a science.

Science studies the universal laws of nature, with no national boundaries and no national or cultural attributes. Although modern science was developed in the west, it has become the common wealth of all mankind, and it has also integrated the contributions of scientists from the East and the West. There is no scientific discipline that only one nation can accept, and there is no scientific discipline that only people with a certain cultural background can understand but people with other cultural backgrounds can't master. China people don't need to learn western culture to master modern medicine, just because modern medicine is a science without national cultural attributes. Therefore, it is absurd to regard TCM as a unique science in China, and to blame westerners' ignorance of China culture for the fact that its scientific status is not recognized by the western scientific community.

Science is a complete knowledge system, and all disciplines are interrelated and unified. No independent scientific discipline has nothing to do with other disciplines or even conflicts with each other. Modern medicine is based on biology, and biology is based on physics and chemistry. However, TCM is not only incompatible with modern medicine as a whole (not just individual details), but also with biology, chemistry and physics. Not only against modern medicine, but also against the whole modern scientific system. Such things can be philosophy, metaphysics or other things unrelated to science, but they can't be science.

A common reason for defending TCM is that TCM is an empirical science and the crystallization of thousands of years' experience. Although experience sometimes contains scientific factors, experience itself is not science, and it is impossible to sum up scientific theories based on experience without scientific methods, so the word "empirical science" itself is unscientific. A long history has nothing to do with whether a subject is scientific or not. Some scientific disciplines (such as modern medicine) have a very short history, while some non-scientific disciplines (such as fortune telling, witchcraft and astrology) have a longer history than traditional Chinese medicine. Both ancient and modern times are only about 30 years old, and the average life expectancy of modern China people has greatly increased to over 70 years old, thanks to modern medicine. In fact, Chinese medicine may have a negative impact on the prosperity of the Chinese nation. I don't know how many people in China died prematurely because of improper treatment or taking toxic tonics for health preservation. For another example, Chinese medicine practitioners throughout the ages believed that the time for a woman to conceive was within six days after her menstruation was clean, and they also talked nonsense about the fact that one day she was pregnant and two days she was pregnant, and that time was precisely the "safe period" when a woman was least likely to conceive. If China really chose a date "Dunlun" according to the guidance of Chinese medicine in ancient times, it was an unintentional family planning. Denying Chinese medicine is a science, not completely denying Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine theory has no scientific value, but it can have humanistic value. Some empirical therapies of traditional Chinese medicine (especially folk prescriptions and proven prescriptions) may also have practical value and are worth exploring by modern medicine. Therefore, the correct attitude towards Chinese medicine should be to "abandon medicine testing", abandon unscientific Chinese medicine theory and test the effectiveness and safety of Chinese medicine therapy under the guidance of modern medicine. We don't have to sell ourselves short because TCM is unscientific. After all, before the rise of modern medicine, the medical skills of all nationalities (including western medicine) were unscientific, not much better or even worse than Chinese medicine. Some people claim that Chinese medicine is a "super science" and a "human science", and the future development of science will prove its correctness. This is no different from those "fortune tellers" and "feng shui masters" who claim that fortune telling and feng shui are "prediction science" and "environmental science" beyond modern science, but they are wishful thinking. It is possible for modern medicine to accept some kind of therapy of Chinese medicine, but it is completely impossible to accept the theory of Chinese medicine. We have no reason to believe that the wisdom of the ancients can surpass modern science. Science is developing forward, and it is impossible to return to ignorance. Astronomy will not return to astrology, chemistry will not return to alchemy, biology will not return to creationism, and medicine will not return to metaphysics and primitive medicine. Whether we can transcend the pure national feelings and treat TCM scientifically is the touchstone to test the scientific and rational accomplishment of a China person.

In fact, the mainstream of Chinese medicine has always looked down on experience, looked down on folk remedies and looked down on prescriptions based on experience. The theory of traditional Chinese medicine is basically not the accumulation of experience, but a fantasy based on the metaphysics of yin and yang and five elements, and the diagnosis and prescription of drugs are based on this fantasy. Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica is regarded as a master of TCM experience, but it is full of the fallacy of "the feeling between man and nature". For example, it is claimed that the husband and wife have a "miraculous effect" in treating infertility after drinking a cup of rain from beginning of spring. This is obviously not the accumulation of experience, but because "the meaning of all things can develop from it". Chinese medicine believes that tiger bones, tiger penis, bear gall and rhinoceros horn are all good medicines, because the fierceness and strength of these animals will cause associations. The so-called image analogy is similar to inductive witchcraft. Leeches can suck blood, so Chinese medicine allows them to be dried and used as medicine to promote blood circulation and remove blood stasis. Earthworms (earthworms) drill around in the soil, and Chinese medicine believes that they can be dried and used as medicine to dredge collaterals and diuresis. All these things are too numerous to mention, and biological habits are attached to their dead body effects. This is obviously not the crystallization of experience, but the disguised induction witchcraft.

Without scientific guidance, valuable experience can easily go astray. Take the antimalarial drug artemisinin as an example. Its research and development is inspired by Jin's prescription for treating malaria: "Hold Artemisia annua once, dye it with two liters of water, and wring the juice to take it." This is obviously a prescription, which has nothing to do with the theory of syndrome differentiation and treatment of traditional Chinese medicine and the compatibility of compound prescription. Later Chinese medicine books, such as Compendium of Materia Medica, recorded that Artemisia annua can intercept malaria, but modern research shows that Artemisia annua (Artemisia annua), which is fragrant and edible in Chinese medicine, cannot cure malaria. Artemisinin is extracted from Artemisia annua (Artemisia annua), another plant that Chinese medicine believes cannot intercept malaria. We can only speculate that Ge Hong's Artemisia annua refers to Artemisia annua, which was confused by later Chinese medicine, so it is often called Artemisia annua now.

Another common reason for defending Chinese medicine is that it is effective. But effectiveness is not equal to science. Science will be effective, but what is effective is not necessarily science. People in China discovered before and after the Ming Dynasty that vaccination with human pox could prevent smallpox, which should be the crystallization of experience and have certain effects. Traditional Chinese medicine regards smallpox as a "fetal poison" that children are born with and hidden in their lives. Vaccination is to extract the fetal poison. Even after the safer and more effective vaccinia operation was introduced to China from the west at the beginning of19th century, TCM should combine traditional Chinese and western medicine to treat the reaction after vaccination based on syndrome differentiation, which is considered as "spleen meridian is very toxic and blood-heat is incompatible". Today, it is of course ridiculous to combine this theory with effective experience. The Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine, founded in 1955, was renamed as the Institute of Traditional Chinese Medicine in June last year, and the word "Li" was specially added. It is said that this shows that the debate over whether Chinese medicine is scientific for many years is over. If this word game can end the argument, it will be too easy. Creationists in the United States set up the Institute of Creationism Science, but biologists still don't recognize Creationism as science. Similarly, although the biomedical community in the United States has a debate about whether some therapies of Chinese medicine (such as acupuncture) are effective, there is no debate about whether Chinese medicine is a science: it is not a science. For example, both the National Institutes of Health and the American Medical Association classify Chinese medicine and other messy folk medicine as "alternative medicine" and do not belong to medical science. The well-known anti-pseudoscience organization "the so-called scientific investigation committee on supernatural phenomena" (CSICOP) simply thinks that Chinese medicine is metaphysics, witchcraft and pseudoscience. A general rebound of TCM supporters in the face of criticism is that critics don't understand TCM. It seems that only practitioners of TCM are qualified to criticize TCM. According to this logic, we can also say that only fortune tellers, feng shui "masters" and astrologers are qualified to criticize fortune telling, feng shui and astrology. To criticize whether a theory is scientific or not, we don't need to make an "enemy camp 18" and vice versa, and we don't even need to know its details, just measure its thoughts and methods according to general scientific standards. Especially in the case of modern medicine as a contrast, as long as you have modern medical knowledge, it is easier to judge the unscientific nature of Chinese medicine. If we use some widely accepted inspection standards in philosophy of science, such as logical self-sufficiency, testability, falsifiability, testability, etc. Analyzing Chinese medicine, I think it is not difficult to draw the conclusion that Chinese medicine is not scientific. I don't want to do this boring theoretical analysis of "what is science" here. I just want to explain why Chinese medicine is not science from another angle, and in turn explain "what is science". Science pays attention to innovation and never worships the past. Therefore, there is no classic in science that everyone must read and believe. Unless modern medical students are interested in medical history, no one will study the works of Hippocrates, Galen, Visuri and Harvey. Being unfamiliar with classic works will not affect their medical practice at all. No one in modern medical papers will take the quotations of sages as arguments and prove their correctness by quoting classics. Chinese medicine is not like this. Ancient documents such as Huangdi Neijing, Treatise on Febrile Diseases and Synopsis of the Golden Chamber are the supreme classics that TCM students must read, memorize and believe, and are the basis for their diagnosis and prescription. Papers of traditional Chinese medicine are often just to clarify and textual research these classics. So Chinese medicine is more like a humanities subject than a science. Science studies the universal laws of nature, with no national boundaries and no national or cultural attributes. Although modern science was developed in the west, it has become the common wealth of all mankind, and it has also integrated the contributions of scientists from the East and the West. There is no scientific discipline that only one nation can accept, and there is no scientific discipline that only people with a certain cultural background can understand but people with other cultural backgrounds can't master. China people don't need to learn western culture to master modern medicine, just because modern medicine is a science without national cultural attributes. Therefore, it is absurd to regard TCM as a unique science in China, and to blame westerners' ignorance of China culture for the fact that its scientific status is not recognized by the western scientific community. Science is a complete knowledge system, and all disciplines are interrelated and unified. No independent scientific discipline has nothing to do with other disciplines or even conflicts with each other. Modern medicine is based on biology, and biology is based on physics and chemistry. However, TCM is not only incompatible with modern medicine as a whole (not just individual details), but also with biology, chemistry and physics. Not only against modern medicine, but also against the whole modern scientific system. Such things can be philosophy, metaphysics or other things unrelated to science, but they can't be science. A common reason for defending TCM is that TCM is an empirical science and the crystallization of thousands of years' experience. Although experience sometimes contains scientific factors, experience itself is not science, and it is impossible to generalize scientific theories based on experience without scientific methods, so the term "empirical science" itself is not.

Besides, the effectiveness of Chinese medicine treatment is questionable. Many people believe in the efficacy of Chinese medicine because they believe that they have been cured by Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine also talks about how to treat a patient with intractable diseases skillfully in medical records. Unfortunately, the patient's testimony and the doctor's "medical record" are not considered as evidence of curative effect by modern medicine. Many diseases can heal themselves, especially when psychological hints are given. The recovery of patients is not necessarily caused by the treatment they received. Therefore, a patient is cured by Chinese medicine with a certain therapy, which cannot be used as proof that Chinese medicine is superb in technology and the therapy is indeed effective. Whether a therapy or drug is effective can only be determined through strictly designed clinical trials. Modern medicine did not establish this principle until the 1940s, and it is understandable that the ancients were superstitious about medical records of famous doctors. But today, some "masters of Chinese medicine" still refuse to accept the clinical trial standards of modern medicine. They brag about an incurable disease just when it is "cured", but they don't say anything about the incurable cases, and they don't even know how to reflect on their loved ones. What's the difference between this and a quack?

Defenders of traditional Chinese medicine often say that the practice of the Chinese nation's five thousand years of reproduction proves that traditional Chinese medicine is indeed a precious wealth of mankind. This evidence of appealing to national feelings is not worth refuting at all. The prosperity of a nation does not need to be maintained by medical skills, which cannot prove the scientific nature of its medical skills. Other ethnic groups and even other species have multiplied for thousands of years. Before modern medicine was introduced into China, the average life expectancy of China people was not higher than that of other ethnic groups, and it was only about 30 years old in ancient and modern times. Thanks to modern medicine, the average life expectancy of modern China people has greatly increased to over 70 years old. In fact, Chinese medicine may have a negative impact on the prosperity of the Chinese nation. I don't know how many people in China died prematurely because of improper treatment or taking toxic tonics for health preservation. For another example, Chinese medicine practitioners throughout the ages believed that the time for a woman to conceive was within six days after her menstruation was clean, and they also talked nonsense about the fact that one day she was pregnant and two days she was pregnant, and that time was precisely the "safe period" when a woman was least likely to conceive. If China really chose a date "Dunlun" according to the guidance of Chinese medicine in ancient times, it was an unintentional family planning.

Denying Chinese medicine is a science, not completely denying Chinese medicine. Traditional Chinese medicine theory has no scientific value, but it can have humanistic value. Some empirical therapies of traditional Chinese medicine (especially folk prescriptions and proven prescriptions) may also have practical value and are worth exploring by modern medicine. Therefore, the correct attitude towards Chinese medicine should be to "abandon medicine testing", abandon unscientific Chinese medicine theory and test the effectiveness and safety of Chinese medicine therapy under the guidance of modern medicine. Science. A long history has nothing to do with whether a subject is scientific or not. Some scientific disciplines (such as modern medicine) have a very short history, while some non-scientific disciplines (such as fortune telling, witchcraft and astrology) have a longer history than traditional Chinese medicine. In fact, the mainstream of Chinese medicine has always looked down on experience, looked down on folk remedies and looked down on prescriptions based on experience. The theory of traditional Chinese medicine is basically not the accumulation of experience, but a fantasy based on the metaphysics of yin and yang and five elements, and the diagnosis and prescription of drugs are based on this fantasy. Li Shizhen's Compendium of Materia Medica is regarded as a master of TCM experience, but it is full of the fallacy of "the feeling between man and nature". For example, it is claimed that the husband and wife have a "miraculous effect" in treating infertility after drinking a cup of rain from beginning of spring. This is obviously not the accumulation of experience, but because "the meaning of all things can develop from it". Chinese medicine believes that tiger bones, tiger penis, bear gall and rhinoceros horn are all good medicines, because the fierceness and strength of these animals will cause associations. The so-called image analogy is similar to inductive witchcraft. Leeches can suck blood, so Chinese medicine allows them to be dried and used as medicine to promote blood circulation and remove blood stasis. Earthworms (earthworms) drill around in the soil, and Chinese medicine believes that they can be dried and used as medicine to dredge collaterals and diuresis. All these things are too numerous to mention, and biological habits are attached to their dead body effects. This is obviously not the crystallization of experience, but the disguised induction witchcraft. Without scientific guidance, valuable experience can easily go astray. Take the antimalarial drug artemisinin as an example. Its research and development was inspired by Jin's prescription for treating malaria: "Hold Artemisia annua once, dye it with two liters of water, and wring the juice to take it." This is obviously a prescription, which has nothing to do with the theory of syndrome differentiation and treatment of traditional Chinese medicine and the compatibility of compound prescription. Later Chinese medicine books, such as Compendium of Materia Medica, recorded that Artemisia annua can intercept malaria, but modern research shows that Artemisia annua (Artemisia annua), which is fragrant and edible in Chinese medicine, cannot cure malaria. Artemisinin is extracted from Artemisia annua (Artemisia annua), another plant that Chinese medicine believes cannot intercept malaria. We can only speculate that Ge Hong's Artemisia annua refers to Artemisia annua, which was confused by later Chinese medicine, so it is often called Artemisia annua now. Another common reason for defending Chinese medicine is that it is effective. But effectiveness is not equal to science. Science will be effective, but what is effective is not necessarily science. People in China discovered before and after the Ming Dynasty that vaccination with human pox could prevent smallpox, which should be the crystallization of experience and have certain effects. Traditional Chinese medicine regards smallpox as a "fetal poison" that children are born with and hidden in their lives. Vaccination is to extract the fetal poison. Even after the safer and more effective vaccinia operation was introduced to China from the west at the beginning of19th century, TCM should combine traditional Chinese and western medicine to treat the reaction after vaccination based on syndrome differentiation, which is considered as "spleen meridian is very toxic and blood-heat is incompatible". Today, it is of course ridiculous to combine this theory with effective experience. Besides, the effectiveness of Chinese medicine treatment is questionable. Many people believe in the efficacy of Chinese medicine because they believe that they have been cured by Chinese medicine. Chinese medicine also talks about how to treat a patient with intractable diseases skillfully in medical records. Unfortunately, the patient's testimony and the doctor's "medical record" are not considered as evidence of curative effect by modern medicine. Many diseases can heal themselves, especially when psychological hints are given. The recovery of patients is not necessarily caused by the treatment they received. Therefore, a patient is cured by Chinese medicine with a certain therapy, which cannot be used as proof that Chinese medicine is superb in technology and the therapy is indeed effective. Whether a therapy or drug is effective can only be determined through strictly designed clinical trials. Modern medicine did not establish this principle until the 1940s, and it is understandable that the ancients were superstitious about medical records of famous doctors. But today, some "masters of Chinese medicine" still refuse to accept the clinical trial standards of modern medicine. They brag about an incurable disease just when it is "cured", but they don't say anything about the incurable cases, and they don't even know how to reflect on their loved ones. What's the difference between this and a quack? Defenders of traditional Chinese medicine often say that the practice of the Chinese nation's five thousand years of reproduction proves that traditional Chinese medicine is indeed a precious wealth of mankind. This evidence of appealing to national feelings is not worth refuting at all. The prosperity of a nation does not need to be maintained by medical skills, which cannot prove the scientific nature of its medical skills. Other ethnic groups and even other species have multiplied for thousands of years. Before modern medicine was introduced to China, the average life expectancy of China people was not higher than that of other ethnic groups.

We don't have to sell ourselves short because TCM is unscientific. After all, before the rise of modern medicine, the medical skills of all nationalities (including western medicine) were unscientific, not much better or even worse than Chinese medicine. Some people claim that Chinese medicine is a "super science" and a "human science", and the future development of science will prove its correctness. This is no different from those "fortune tellers" and "feng shui masters" who claim that fortune telling and feng shui are "prediction science" and "environmental science" beyond modern science, but they are wishful thinking. It is possible for modern medicine to accept some kind of therapy of Chinese medicine, but it is completely impossible to accept the theory of Chinese medicine. We have no reason to believe that the wisdom of the ancients can surpass modern science. Science is developing forward, and it is impossible to return to ignorance. Astronomy will not return to astrology, chemistry will not return to alchemy, biology will not return to creationism, and medicine will not return to metaphysics and primitive medicine.

Whether we can transcend the pure national feelings and treat TCM scientifically is the touchstone to test the scientific and rational accomplishment of a China person.