Is Medicine An Exact Science?

Most of you will probably know the answer is no. However, you may not know to what extent it is inexact. I would argue it is shockingly inexact. I say this because our knowledge of the human body and mind is extremely lacking. Probably we know less than 1% of what there is to know. Sounds crazy at first, but really think on it. Consider a prescription drug advertisement. Most of the commercial will discuss all the things the drug may do that you don’t want, or side effects. About 20% of the commercial will discuss what the drug should do. All of those side effects are caused by the drug acting in parts of the body, or binding to receptors that are poorly understood. Medicine cannot be an exact science because of our shocking lack of knowledge. Doctors and other healthcare professionals are constantly faced with decisions, which require them to weigh the pros and cons of a treatment. Only those pros and cons they know about, remember. Think about this the next time you start to criticize your doctor or healthcare professional. I’m not trying to excuse them, but it can be quite difficult. And yes, there are bad doctors and other professionals out there. Medicine is without a doubt a very inexact science. Those of you who’ve studied anything medical know, or have an idea at least, just how inexact. However, fear not because there is still decent medical help out there and we are making impressive progress in increasing our knowledge about the human mind and body. Evidence-based medicine is probably the best option we have right now, as it makes medicine as scientific as possible. In other words, we do what all of the studies tell us to do. That’s about the best we can do for now, and again, we humans continue to make impressive strides in our knowledge.