Causality vs. Magic [View all]

One of the features of unscientific approaches is magical thinking. In magic, associations are made that have no causal link, such as if X poisons me then taking X diluted by a factor of 10e10 will cure me, or a tiger is strong, so ingesting powered tiger penis with give me tiger-strength sexual power. This kind of thinking is also behind astrology (broadly defined) - objects in the sky are amazing, so their patterns and motions must tell us something profound.

Causality, however, posits mechanisms. An important feature of a scientific view is that correlation and causality are two different things, and the difference comes down to mechanism. This notion of mechanism is very strong, and magic has attempted to take on its trappings as a way to justify itself in the modern, scientific world. No where is this impulse stronger that in "alternative medicine", where ridiculous notions such as "biophotons" as the agents of "touch therapy" (where no one is actually touched) are uncritically accepted by those who have bought into the magic, but who feel the need to justify their magic with the appearance of science. Another bit of magic in search of mechanism is magnet therapy where the claim is that magnets draw blood to the area to promote healing. The fact that hemoglobin is weakly diamagnetic seems to have been forgotten.

Modern magical thinking in medicine has most of its roots in late-18th and 19th century German philosophy and mysticism. That is actually when homeopathy was born. Some garbage from that era, such as phrenology, has been discarded (for the time being), but other pseudoscientific notions (including Marxist religion masquerading as scientific socialism) still persist.