Why medicine still needs a scientific foundation: Restating the hypotheticodeductive model - Part one

• Medical science stands accused of providing an incomplete understanding of health because it is supposedly founded on linearity, reductionism, and positivism. • These criticisms misrepresent the scientific method. • The alternatives offered by complexity theory, postmodernism, and qualitative research risk falling into the traps that the scientific method avoids. • The hypotheticodeductive model of science provides both a coherent description of the growth of scientific knowledge and a prescription for the conduct of good science.