This is what the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Ophthalmologists (RANZCO) says about Irlen Syndrome…
https://ranzco.edu/news/no-scientific-evidence-that-irlen-syndrome-exists-say-ophthalmologists/
It appears from the information available, it might be another US ‘physician’ making claims to sell their own cure products.
It’s been a while since I visited that website - it looks all modern! Good to see they’re continuing the good fight.
Many responses here focus on dodgy science being used for commercial purposes and fraud where the perpetrator had a clear motive in attempting to gain money or kudos. There are cases where the motive and the desired ends are much more complex.
An area that is complex and has wide ramifications but is not noticed too much here is creationism, or to apply its latest branding intelligent design. Before the 19th century all scientists were creationist of one kind or another. Charles Darwin came along and gave a much better explanation of the origins of living organisms as we see them. By the time that genetics was combined with natural selection ++, population genetics and a few other bits and bobs there was hardly a biologist who did not enthusiastically accept that evolution was the explanation, without which nothing made sense. So why is there a huge body of unscientific research aimed at refuting evolution?
The concept that science is the proper realm for understanding the topic requires a secular approach. This says that we keep matters of fact and evidence of concrete questions separate from matters of faith. There are many scientists who are theists and of those many are religious but generally they don’t use their faith to do science or their science to do faith. The Catholic church and most mainstream religions accept evolution as the explanation of speciation and find no problem maintaining their other beliefs. Most secular societies follow this pattern, the richer nations and in particular those of scandinavia, western europe, and New Zealand, Canada and Australia. Nations where religion plays a big part in polity are more likely to mix science, politics and religion. For example the Turks are strong believers in creation.
The glaring exception is the USA. It is up the top with the richer developed nations but it is also where it is standard to introduce religion into politics and politics into religion. The USA is the origin of modern creationism which grew to be significant in the 1930s. The Australian constitution (section 116) and that of the USA are similar in trying to keep the two apart but arguments about this have constantly run hot and been to their Supreme Court several times. Scientists have been playing whack-a-mole in court to keep creationism out of the school science syllabus for decades. In Oz you hardly hear of it and AFAIK it has never been to the High Court. From time to time we look like following the US in this but so far it hasn’t happened.
In the USA there is a group of loosely affiliated evangelical churches that incline towards biblical literalism. If you want to take the Book literally logically you have to take it all that way. This means the Genesis accounts of creation +++ must be the explanation for life on earth and so evolution must be wrong. Here is your predetermined outcome. Therefore the faithful have a duty to show evolution to be false. Here is your motive for doing unscience.
I am not going to go into the multitude of arguments: Wikipedia gives a good summary. It is enough to say that every known fallacy and debating trick is used and reused even when thoroughly debunked. In this respect creationism is much the same as other forms of denialism like anti climate science, antivaccs, anti water fluoridation, etc. The difference is that if you allow religion into politics these arguments gain much more grunt and significance. In the USA the religious right has huge impact on issues as diverse as foreign policy, education and women’s rights and voting patterns in general.
Where the motive to do bad science, or debating disguised as science, is money or fame it is not too hard to push back, although success cannot be guaranteed. When religion and politics become a blended voting block unscience takes on a life of its own and may be unstoppable. It makes sense to vote for how you want the country to be run. It makes no sense to vote for how life on earth got to be here or if gravity holds us in our beds at night.
++ Darwin knew nothing about genetics, which is the mechanism of inherited changes in body form in populations, he just proposed that such a thing must exist.
+++ There are two that contradict each other.
Drifting off-topic (or maybe not):
Our current Prime Minister has said that he believes in miracles. Whether that covers Creation, I don’t know.
Among teaching of his church Prosperity Theology looms large. I sum that up thus:
From the perspective of this thread, the nub of the issue is exemplified in the case of Israel Folau. Does freedom of religion impart a right to say anything, provided you believe it? Would that extend to fields of science?
The case has distorted our society in other ways, so why not science?
I am reluctant to go there for a number of reasons. Australia has had Prime Ministers with strong faith before and yet we remain a secular society as far as politics goes, the PM may be professional enough to continue that trend and I prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise.
School chaplains? John Howard created the program, and Ronald Williams got it declared unconstitutional. Unfortunately the ruling was not based upon the religious test, and so the program was easily ‘fixed’.
I could differ here in a very factual way. Both at state run and denominational schools.
In the 1950’s and 1960’s Queensland state education system included compulsory religious instruction. Typically Protestant Christian with separate lasses for C of E, Baptist, etc! There were rarely Classes for the Catholic version as students of that preference went to an appropriate denominational school.
The literary interpretation of creation was taught explicitly by the school teachers and Ministers. There was little to no science in primary education. Hence the teachings were purely belief based. No unscientific research was required. The story of the Arc or the seven loafs and fishes were equally presented as fact as was the resurrection of Christ.
It is perhaps wisdom for those who might believe otherwise, that to each his own, rather than to pass judgement or apply reason or logic or even scientific principle.
The consequence of choosing to ignore polite wisdom might be to invite a discussion which simply cannot be resolved as to whose belief is more powerful, or more right or more real?
Is it enough that we have to have Politics in our Sport, without also inviting Politics into our Religion? No science or research required on either account?
The fathers (noticed there were no mothers involved which might explain the flaws) of out constitution built certain aspects of religion into parliamentary process. However discretion and tolerance have progressively changed more traditional thinking.
All of this is modern Australian History. It has little to do with science of any kind.
The different views concerning the disagreement between Rugby Australia and an high profile ex player belong in the Departure Lounge. Belief vs Commercial interests might better describe the discussion point. The two parties deserve their day in court. Perhaps both are in some way at fault here?
As close as the lawyers involved might get to science is in their clerks crafted use of page counts when it comes to calculating the fees.
Having drifted into the topic, I must agree with you that there are too many opportunities in the ‘science and religion’ field that would derail this thread. Instead, I’ll go with another subject (chosen ‘fairly’ randomly from a brief Internet search):
In brief, for a long time science thought that people were of varying and definable ‘races’. Unfortunately, there is no evidence to support this in genetic code or on any other scientific basis.
Race has been used for immigration policy, to keep ‘the natives’ in check, as an excuse for discriminatory drug laws, as a reason to look down on and enslave others… in short, for centuries ‘race’ has been (and continues to be) used to define ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ in the worst possible way.
The only way that humans can be reliably subdivided in such a manner is based upon culture - and we have spent the last 150 years destroying or subverting cultures. We should value whatever cultures have managed to survive this homogenisation process.
I don’t know if it’s actually research, but …
phb’s point is, they good doctors went up against the international consensus. Unusually, they won, and were given a Nobel Prize.
Quite true. As a rule you only get the top prizes for succeeding at nonconformity, doing something new and different. This does not make what they did unscientific, quite the contrary, they worked within the framework of the scientific method even if (like Darwin and Einstein) they came up with a result that was contrary to the establishment.
We also have to be very careful of those who say their nonconformist view is being shouted down by the establishment because the mainstream are conspiring against the new result. It is much more likely that the unconventional view is unscientific nonsense and they are inventing a conspiracy to account for the criticism they are receiving. Nonconformity can signal failure as well as success.
