Skip Navigation

This Article
Right arrow Full Text Freely available
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow E-letters: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when E-letters are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in ISI Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow Search for citing articles in:
ISI Web of Science (3)
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Kernick, D.
Right arrow Articles by Sweeney, K.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Kernick, D.
Right arrow Articles by Sweeney, K.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

Family Practice Vol. 18, No. 4, 356-358
© Oxford University Press 2001

Editorial

Post-normal medicine

David Kernick and Kieran Sweeney,a

St Thomas' Health Centre and
a St Leonard's Practice, Exeter, UK.

Kernick D and Sweeney K. Post-normal medicine. Family Practice 2001; 18: 356–358.

Received 2 October 2000; Revised 9 February 2001; Accepted 12 March 2001.

Keywords. Complexity, non-linearity, post-normal medicine.

The evolution of post-normal thinking—from normal to post-normal science

Since the time of the Renaissance, the predominant metaphor for science has been the machine. Normal science is based on logical positivism—the belief that there is a single universal condition that can be validated and which accumulates with time building on what has gone before.1 With the application of science to medicine —‘the paradigm of certainty’—the modern world had arrived. With it came a view that the methods of science would transcend the psychological, social and cultural forces that previously had shaped world views. But is the clockwork universe finally running down?

More recently, post-modernism has challenged the directives of science, emphasizing the process of knowing and the importance of how our minds form an integral part of that process. To the post-modern eye, the truth is not out there waiting to be . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Some fundamentals of complex systems

Understanding complex systems

Trajectories and attractors
Complex systems are dependent on their history
Information is distributed across the whole system
Complex systems are unpredictable but have emergent properties
Towards post-normal medicine

References


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?