The modern approach to medicine, which can broadly be characterized as reductionist, reveals itself clearly in scientism—an ill-named but important concept. The concept of scientism was introduced by 20th-century economist Friedrich Hayek.4 He observed that, too often, the methods and language of science are imitated by institutions and systems not engaged in science, such that the resulting efforts are generally not scientific at all. Not only do we see words like theory and analysis wrapped around distinctly untheoretical and unanalyzed (and often unanalyzable) ideas, but—worse—we see the
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