The title of this post is from a Futurama episode in which a man responds to an accident victim gathering a crowd in the street, “I have a degree in homeopathy.” A robot present responds with the quote above – nicely concise and to the point.

It raises a serious issue, however – granting degrees and licenses for disciplines (especially health-related disciplines) that lack a scientific backing. This issue comes up often, as it has recently in the UK with a proposal to register practitioners of traditional medicine. A group of young professionals called the Voice of Young Science decided to protest this proposal by offering diplomas in “old wives' tales” to anyone who could answer some basic questions (like an apple a day keeps who away?). In a statement they said:

“We are confronted with the possibility of misdiagnosis, the failure to provide suitable medical treatment and dangerous drug interactions, which the scheme is more likely to enhance than prevent. “There is no public benefit from these proposed regulations and the DH [department of health] must not adopt them.”

That is exactly correct, and is the core of the criticism against licensing dubious practices. As Edzard Ernst sais, “If you regulate nonsense, it is still nonsense.”

Unfortunately, the history of this conflict has been a long series of victories for nonsense. Politicians seem easy to convince that regulating nonsense is a good thing. The argument offered is that through regulation we can have quality control, and minimize fraud and the worst abuses. However, without an objective scientific standard there is no reason to think that regulation will help quality control – as Ernst says, in the end you still have nonsense passing off as medicine.

The point that politicians seem to consistently miss is that offering a degree or license to a profession as a means of regulation has the effect of legitimizing the profession or practice. This can have the consequence (intended by practitioners, but often professed to be unintended by politicians) of promoting unscientific practices.

Meanwhile, libertarians like John Stossel point out that these regulations really serve the purpose of limiting competition, not quality control. Psychics in Salem want licensure so that they can protect their lucrative gig. Of course this accusation is easy to aim at any profession.

The question comes down to external validity (as opposed to purely internal validity) – is the profession based upon a transparent and objective set of standards, rather than a purely internal and arbitrary set of standards?

That is where science comes in – science is, by its very nature, transparent and objective. This is partly why medicine should be based upon high quality science; not only because it works but because it provides an objective set of standards by which to maintain quality control.

The Voice of Young Science have it exactly right. We need to clearly and unequivocally champion the role of science in medicine, and ceaselessly point out the risks of bad science or anti-science. This has to occur on every front, including regulation. Otherwise the public will end up with a system of carefully regulated nonsense.