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Between Scientific Dogmatism and Political Angendasetting
-Homeopathy and the History of the Skeptical Movement in the USA -
Dr. Jens Behnke
March 2018
Summary:
The global homeopathy critique is decisively influenced by the so-called ‘skeptical
movement`. This ideological community refers to a dogmatic understanding of science,
in order to systematically discredit homeopathy in media campaigns. This article recon-
structs the historical origins of ‘skeptics’ in the US. Links to medical societies, industrial
donors and political institutions are analyzed. The methods of the grouping are given a
critical appraisal based on specific historical examples.
Keywords: History of homeopathy, Sceptical Movement, GWUP, Scientism, USA
1. Introduction
Since the emergence of homeopathy some two hundred years ago it has been constant-
ly criticized. This usually ignites in the use of highly potentised substances as is custom-
ary in homeopathy. In the current debate in the German-speaking area members of the
so-called Information Network Homeopathy (INH) [1] are leading the way. The INH is a
direct offshoot of the Society for the Scientific Investigation of Para-Sciences e.V.
(GWUP). [2] The GWUP in turn belongs to an international network of similar organiza-
tions which are summarized under the term ‘skeptical movement’. The present article
seeks to give a brief historical outline of the emergence of the ‘skeptical movement’ in
the USA as well as a general classification of its motives, contents and structures. Refer-
ence is made to homeopathy, which has always been a particularly important subject of
the activities of the GWUP and analogue institutions.
2. Homeopathy in the USA
Homeopathy was first exported to America in 1825 by the Danish doctor Hans Burch
Gram. [3] In the following period, repeatedly fueled by the migration of talented ho-
meopaths from overseas, it came into a bloom never known in Europe. The highest
number of homoeopathic colleges was reached in 1900 at 22. This was equivalent to
15% of all US medical schools. [4] In addition there were 140 homeopathic hospitals,
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127 lay and medical associations, and there appeared 31 different professional journals.
[5]
This upswing came to a sudden end by the Flexner Report [6], published in 1910: Under
the leadership of Abraham Flexner the financially strong Carnegie Foundation per-
formed an evaluation all medical colleges. The underlying goal was to significantly re-
duce their numbers in order to focus on the promotion and expansion of a few large
institutions. Critics of the report complained that the evaluation criteria were purposely
formulated in a way that the homeopathic schools had to do worse. This process was
supported by the politically influential American Medical Association (AMA) by dividing
colleges into quality classes. The AMA was founded in response to the American Insti-
tute of Homeopathy (AIH) established in 1844. The AIH was the first medical organiza-
tion in the United States ever. The AMA understood itself from the outset as an anti-
homeopathy organization [7]: Its first chairman, Morris Fishbein, published several
works explicitly opposed to homeopathy and other complementary and alternative
medicine (CAM) throughout his career. [8-9] Homeopathy was perceived not least as an
economic threat by the conventionally oriented medical profession. The Flexner Report
and the AMA ensured that the urgently needed third-party funding was withdrawn
from the homeopathic colleges and that political decisions were made to their detri-
ment. [10] As a result most of the homeopathic educational institutions had to close
their doors by 1923.
The AMA was able to gain significant influence until the middle of the 20th century.
The Rockefeller- and the Carnegie-Foundation, respectively the groups behind them,
established a close cooperation with the growing pharmaceutical industry as key finan-
ciers of the health and science sector. This network decisively influenced the develop-
ment of what we call ‘modern medicine’ today. [11] The responsible federal institutions,
primarily the 1938 established Food and Drug Administration (FDA), sanctioned these
processes due to close links with the economy. For example, between 1959 and 1963,
ten percent of FDA employees later joined those companies they had previously super-
vised on behalf of the government. [12]
The notions of scientific medicine, along with the related understanding of health, dis-
ease and therapy, cannot be isolated from political and economic interests against this
historical background. Traditionally some representatives of conventional medicine per-
ceived CAM as a threat and fought it by different means. One strategy was the public
discrediting of certain therapies, citing their alleged unscientific basis and potential
dangers, by the American National Council Against Health Fraud (NCHF). [13] Certainly
some of the offers circulating on the CAM-market have exactly these properties and are
useless or even harmful. However, this applies equally to many conventional treatments
as well, especially many expensive drugs which can cause serious adverse effects. [14] It
is possible that in this context the motive of distraction from the greater danger actually
played a role. Conventional medicine then had the advantage of being at least theoret-
ically legitimized by the ‘officials’.
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3. The Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP)
In the last decades of the twentieth century, US consumer protection campaigns against
dietary supplements, homeopathy and other forms of CAM have received powerful
support from the first major American skeptics society: The popular philosopher Paul
Kurtz founded it in 1976 as a splinter group of the atheist and socialist-oriented Ameri-
can Humanist Association (AHA). [15] Kurtz saw a resurgent belief of the American
population in astrology on the rise, which he apparently interpreted as a danger to a
rationality-based world order. Consequently, one of the founding impulses of the
CSICOP was the scientific ostracism of astrology through the publication of a manifesto
titled ‘Objections to Astrology’. [16] For this purpose Kurtz collected the signatures of
186 scientists of various disciplines and tried to produce the largest possible media re-
sponse to his topic. The eagerness shown in these and other campaigns against the par-
anormal prompted some signatories to the manifesto and members of CSICOP to dis-
tance themselves from Kurtz. Too little scientific and too much ideologically charged
seemed the habit of the movement. [17-18]
3.1. The Mars Effect
The CSICOP acted with the claim to debunk alleged paranormal phenomena as non-
existent by scientific investigations. The first (and only) study by which this claim should
be fulfilled was the repetition of an investigation by the French psychologist Michel
Gauquelin. He had made statistical calculations to test the hypothesis that a certain po-
sition of the planet Mars in a human birth chart would increase the probability for this
person to become a top athlete. Gauquelin had come to a positive conclusion. [19] The
independent re-analysis of the data on behalf of the CSICOP produced the same result.
[20] This fact prompted Kurtz to withhold the publication of the calculations and claim
that they had produced the opposite outcome. In the media he asserted that he had
disproved the so-called ‘Mars effect’. In addition, he repeatedly tried to prevent a col-
league from disclosing the matter to the public. [21] Incidentally, much later, other ex-
planations were proposed for the Mars effect that did not include astrological implica-
tions.
The discrepancy between pretension and reality with regard to the handling of scien-
tific findings that emerges from this example can be stated as characteristic of the
‘skeptical movement’: Science is not a method of non-judgmental knowledge but a set
of theories already established in advance. Anything that contradicts these theories is
considered unscientific and denied by prejudice, regardless of the direction in which the
empirical findings point. [22] This particular form of scientism [23] should therefore be
understood more as an ideology than an epistemological position. The original postu-
late of scientism is that there are no phenomena to which the methods of science can-
not be successfully applied. At the same time all statements that escape investigation by
scientific methods, such as metaphysical hypotheses, are considered to be pointless. [24]
Many ‘skeptics’ believe that an effect of highly potentised drugs is impossible. They re-
fer to the incompatibility with certain scientific or medical theories and models. These
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models are thus elevated to the status of dogmas which in principle cannot be refuted
by any possible experience. In this way, however, the notion of science is reduced to
absurdity because precisely that type of ultimate theories belongs to the realm of met-
aphysics.
3.2. Homeopathy in the Focus of the Skeptical Movement
The ideological basis of the ‘skeptical movement’ with its dogmatic understanding of
science as well as its focus on public relation campaigns led to connections between the
CSICOP and the NCHF. Meanwhile the last had expanded and consolidated its coopera-
tion with the pharmaceutical industry, petrochemical groups and scientific organiza-
tions such as the AMA. [25] Soon a plethora of articles appeared in journals of the
‘skeptical movement’ that presented CAM as useless and dangerous in the name of sci-
ence. [26] Homeopathy quickly established itself as a favorite subject in this field: It has
always received great popularity among patients, and there was no conclusive theory
that could explain how drugs can trigger medical effects that are not likely to contain
enough molecules of a pharmacologically active substance.
This lack of a theory of the mode of action of potentised drugs is still interpreted by the
‘skeptical movement’ as the actual impossibility of an effect. Following this reasoning
homeopathy belongs to the field of superstition. Therefore it is not only dangerous be-
cause of its alleged ineffectiveness, but because it opens the door to the belief in the
irrational, as a recent homeopathic critic points out. [27] This author consequently calls
for a research ban on homeopathy, precisely because there are high-quality studies that
suggest its efficacy beyond placebo. [28]
The CSICOP developed its first active involvement in the field of homeopathy based on
the research of the French immunologist Jacques Benveniste. This scientist, employed at
a governmental medical research facility, published the results of his experiments with
highly diluted human antibodies (IgE) in the renowned scientific journal Nature in 1988.
IgE was able to trigger an immune response in certain cells even if it was diluted to such
an extent that in a purely mathematical way no molecule of the starting material could
be present anymore (Avogadro’s number). This effect only occurred if the solution was
prepared in stages and shaken vigorously between the individual dilution steps. [29]
Nature's editor, John Maddox, published Benveniste's work only under the condition
that the experiments were repeated under the supervision of a commission appointed
by him. One member of this group was the well-known stage magician and ‘skeptic’
James Randi. It turned out that the repetition of the experiments revealed the same
effects only under certain conditions. The effects were demonstrable and significant but
not reproducible in all repetitions. This is true even today, although the number of simi-
lar experiments with a positive result is now relatively large. [30-35] It seems to be an
interesting area of research in which a lot is still unclear. [36] Such phenomena are
called anomalies. Frequently scientific progress takes place precisely when such process-
es, which are difficult to grasp by means of established theories, are better researched.
[37] Randi and the CSICOP initiated a media-effective campaign against Benveniste and
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homeopathy as a whole which made the matter seem settled and suggested Benveniste
was a fraudster or at least deceived by others. [38]
4. Outlook: The Society for the Scientific Investigation of Para-Sciences (GWUP)
Within a few years the ‘skeptical movement' spread from the USA all over the world.
The founding year of the German GWUP was 1987. [39] Within this organization devel-
opments similar to those already known from America soon became apparent: Scientists
who were initially convinced by the program of ‘skeptics’ began to doubt the impartiali-
ty, the methods and the actual goals of the movement. The sociologist Edgar Wunder
was one of 19 founding members of the GWUP and has been working in various posi-
tions within the association for many years. After his departure in 1999 Wunder deliv-
ered an in depth analysis of the mentality of the ‘skeptical movement’. He presented
internal documents from the bodies and organs of the GWUP to support his presenta-
tion. [40]
He states that the typical ‘skeptic’ resembles his enemy image, the ‘esotericist’, in a strik-
ing manner, only in reverse: While the ‘esotericist’ believes things even though they are
not scientifically proven or even refuted, the ‘skeptic’ denies certain phenomena in
principle, regardless of the scientific findings about them. The underlying dogmatic sci-
entism and the structures of the organization are characterized by a dual world view
within one can only be for or against paranormal phenomena and consequently ‘skep-
tic’ or ‘believer’. [41] Intermediates are inadmissible, and dissenters are usually opposed.
The eagerness shown in this struggle is more familiar from contexts of political agita-
tion and has little in common with serious scientific methods. [42]
In fact, while most ‘skeptics’ require scientific scrutiny and evidence in relation to cer-
tain items, they themselves seldom work in this manner, for example, citing publications
in peer-reviewed journals. [43] The rhetorical mean of choice in the refutation of sup-
posedly unscientific claims is rather often the polemic or even the insult. As has been
shown above the end apparently justifies the means, so that arguments against better
knowledge as well as misrepresentations are delivered. [44-45] With regard to the cur-
rent discussion about homeopathy the arguments of the GWUP, the INH and similar
organizations are largely based on insufficient knowledge or deliberate neglect of the
data from clinical trials and basic research experiments. [46] The rare reception of scien-
tific publications is used for the selective and one-sided presentation of some negative
results. In any case the intention clearly is to discredit homeopathy by all available
means, irrespective of the direction in which the empirical evidence points. Due to digi-
talisation the agenda in this area today focuses primarily on the rule of the Internet.
[47]
The scientific dogmatism which is based primarily on the fact that the effects of highly
potentised drugs cannot be explained by the model ‘molecule acts on cell receptor’ has
remained the same from the beginnings of the ‘skeptical movement’ in the USA to to-
day's GWUP. How far the structural similarities between the historical American associa-
tion and its modern German counterpart may go in detail, for example with regard to
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PR strategies and the networking with certain lobby groups and donors, would be re-
served for further research.
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