Stegenga J. Medical Nihilism

Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. — 226 p.Medical nihilism is the view that we should have little confidence in the effectiveness of medical interventions. This work argues that medical nihilism is a compelling view of modern medicine. If we consider the frequency of failed medical interventions, the extent of misleading evidence in medical research, the thin theoretical basis of many interventions, and the malleability of empirical methods in medicine, and if we employ our best inductive framework, then our confidence in the effectiveness of medical interventions ought to be low.