Scientific Skepticism
Scientists generally interpret the doctrine of signatures as superstition. The links are not causal and are consequently widely regarded as purely coincidental. There is no evidence that plant signatures helped in the discovery of medical uses of the plants. The signatures are described as post hoc attributions and mnemonics. Their mnemonic status is of value in creating a system for remembering actions attributed to medical herbs.
Read more about this topic: Doctrine Of Signatures
Famous quotes containing the words scientific and/or skepticism:
“What happened at Hiroshima was not only that a scientific breakthrough ... had occurred and that a great part of the population of a city had been burned to death, but that the problem of the relation of the triumphs of modern science to the human purposes of man had been explicitly defined.”
—Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982)
“No actual skeptic, so far as I know, has claimed to disbelieve in an objective world. Skepticism is not a denial of belief, but rather a denial of rational grounds for belief.”
—William Pepperell Montague (1842–1910)