Semmelweis reflex
The Semmelweis reflex or "Semmelweis effect" is metaphor for the reflex-like rejection of new knowledge because it contradicts entrenched norms, beliefs or paradigms. It refers to Ignaz Semmelweis, who discovered that childbed fever mortality rates could be reduced ten-fold if doctors would wash their hands (we would now say disinfect) with a chlorine solution. His hand-washing suggestions were rejected by his contemporaries.
There is some uncertainty regarding the origin and generally accepted use of the expression.
One source defines it as "the automatic rejection of the obvious, without thought, inspection, or experiment" and attributes the expression Semmelweis Reflex to author Robert Anton Wilson.[1]
Sporadic use of the expression can be found on other webpages[2] and blogs which may or may not be mainstream. One such website atributes Timothy Leary with the following polemical definition of the Semmelweis reflex: "Mob behavior found among primates and larval hominids on undeveloped planets, in which a discovery of important scientific fact is punished" from his book The Game of Life.[3].
The expression has found way into philosophy and religious studies as "unmitigated Humean skepticism concerning causality".[4]
Other writers define the Semmelweis reflex as: Automatic dismissal or rejection of scientific information "without thought, inspection or experiment". [5]
References
- ^ How to improve your information (various tactics), Frederick Mann, 1993, www.mind-trek.com/reports/tl03.htm Mind-TrekCom-Reports-t103] (access 6 June 2008)
- ^ Universal College of Reflexology Certification and Training - New Reflex Discovered!!!
- ^ http://www.besthealth.com.au/news.htm (access 6 May 2008)
- ^ Adam C. Scarfe On Determinations of Causal Connection with Respect to Environmental Problems: Hume, Whitehead, and Hegel http://www.ctr4process.org/publications/ProcessStudies/PSS/2006-9-ScarfeA-On_Determinations_of_Causal_Connection.pdf
- ^
Grant; et al. (2005). "Simpson, Semmelweis, and Transformational Change". Obstet Gynecol. 106: 384–387.
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