Robert M. Young Online Writings
'Scientific Medicine and the Social Order' 66K
This is a lecture I gave to a Refresher Course for General Practitioners when I was Director of the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine at Cambridge. I tried to relate certain debates about reform of the medical curriculum (the 'Todd Report') to the broader and deeper issues with which my research was concerned, in particular, the need to acknowledge that the writ of science cannot include values, beliefs and politics without creating a silly scientism. My approach to these issues was developing fast, and I soon moved on dramatically via the sociology of knowledge and critical theory. It was never published properly; an abbreviated version appeared in the local BSSRS (social responsibility) bulletin, Science or Society 'Special Issue on Medicine and Society' No. 4 (Nov. 197), pp. 7-12.