EGENIS seminar series: "On the Nature and Intelligibility of Medical Knowledge and Practitioners", Prof Dr Hakan Ertin

What kind of knowledge is produced in the realm of medicine? Does the medicine have exact results as mathematics and physics have? Or is medical knowledge not certain? Medical professionals believe that the result of medical knowledge is not always as precise as two and two is four. Why is this so? If so, what kind of results can be deduced from this situation? For instance, does complementary and alternative medicine take advantage of this situation? The complex nature of medical knowledge involves some challenges for scientists outside the medicine researching issues relating to the medical field. This is often encountered while medical (and/or technical) knowledge is being interpreted by social scientists. In fact, German pathologist Rudolf Virchow describes medicine as social science, but medical professionals - usually physicians - cannot even imagine that medicine can be a social science. This perception has become stronger as more and more new technologies enter -even occupy- th