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The concern that pseudoscientific nursing theories, such as Rogerian nursing theory, are being taught in major academic institutions. The author expresses alarm at the belief in paranormal events and personality cults in nursing schools. the teachings of Martha Rogers, the founder of Rogerian nursing theory, and the controversy surrounding the theory's scientific validity. The document also touches upon the idea of a comprehensive theory of nursing and the role of academic titles in nursing education.
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3 0 September/October 2000 SKEPTICAL INQUIRER
SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2000 3 1
Nursing Theory and the Philosophy of Science
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The Vested Interest
SKEPTICAL INQUIRER September/October 2000 3 3
Rogers In Her Own Words
Analysis of quotes f r o m Rogers, Martha E., An Introduction to the Theoretical Basis of Nursing. Philadelphia, 1970. F.A. Davis Company.
Until you read her works, it is hard to believe how confused and vague Rogers's theoretical writings are. Where she does get precise enough t o judge the validity of her thought, she is often simply wrong. For example, Rogers's concept of negative entropy, which she calls "negentropy," is based on her misunderstanding of thermo- dynamics. After claiming, without exam- ples or citations, that, "With the rise of modern science, evidence that man did not develop according to accepted physical laws became more explicit" she found that, "The second law of thermodynamics, useful in predicting the physical world, was inconsistent with the ways in which living systems behaved" because "An increase in entropy posited a trend toward degrada- tion t o homogeneity of organization in contrast to a trend towards heterogeneity and complexity." She concludes that there is a "failure of physical laws to explain the evolution of life." (All the above quotes from p. 51.) She quotes, and summarily dis- misses, the correct explanation: "Rapoport endeavors to deal with this problem by stating that 'no living system is a closed sys- tem and so the second law does not apply t o i t ' " (52). There is no contradiction between the laws of thermodynamics and the behavior of living systems. Rogers confounds Darwinian evolu- t i o n , which she misunderstands, and the common use of the w o r d " e v o l u t i o n " t o mean change over time. She still accepts the long-abandoned evolutionary hierar- chy w i t h man at the top, "life encom- passes the simplest organism t o the most complex in an evolutionary h i e r a r c h y.... At the t o p of this scale man stands t r i - u m p h a n t " (67). All that evolution pre- dicts is improved adaptation, which may lead t o greater or lesser complexity. Rogers is as fuzzy w i t h physics as she is w i t h biology. She says (getting both the scientist's name and the name of the prin- ciple wrong), "Heinsenberg's principle of indeterminacy postulates an uncertainty in all k n o w i n g " (57). This is not true: Heisenberg's uncertainty principle casts no light at all on logical or mathematical cer- tainty, and does not say that we cannot predict w i t h certainty outcomes of macro- scopic events. If a swiftly moving bowling ball directly strikes a bowling pin, we can predict w i t h certainty that the pin will move, even if Heisenberg himself had launched the ball. Also, the principle was not "postulated" but derived from obser- vation and earlier work. Rogers also tells us that "human beings are radiation bod- ies" (113), but not what a radiation body
is. "Radiation body" is not a term f r o m physics or physiology, it is a phrase she has invented, and which (as is all t o o usual in her work) she presents w i t h o u t definition, leaving you t o guess its meaning. Rogers's theory is based on a number of what she calls "assumptions," and she is often "postulating" concepts. Assumptions and postulates are more the tools of math- ematics than of science, because in science t h e fundamental principles are not assumed or postulated but are based on observation. Here is a typical example: "The principles of homeodynamics... are four in number, namely: principle of reciprocy, principle of synchrony, principle of helicy, and principle of resonancy. These principles postulate the way the life process is and predict the nature of its evolving" (79). Another characteristic of her writing is stating the obvious as though it were a deep insight, for example, "Man's capacity to adapt to a wide range of environmental stresses has received considerable attention and has been proposed to be a significant factor in his survival" (49). Rogers's "second assumption on which nursing science builds may be stated thus: Man and environment are continuously exchanging matter and energy with one another" (54). This is no assumption, but a simple fact. She is not above window-dressing with high-sound- ing jargon. Her third "assumption" is: "The life process evolves irreversibly and unidi¬ rectionally along the space-time contin- uum" (59). In plain English: "The processes of life cannot be time-reversed." When she says that "Ontogenesis and phylogenesis evidence a lengthening of conscious awareness (the waking state) t h r o u g h time" (93), she is claiming both that during the development of an individual and dur- ing humanity's evolutionary history, people stay awake for longer periods of time. However, some people need increasing amounts of sleep as they age, and there is no evidence at all about the sleep habits of our prehistoric ancestors. A large part of Rogerian theory is based on the idea of an energy field. She says, without any substantiation, "An energy field is the basic unit of living things. It is this field which imposes pattern and orga- nization on the parts" (61). She says that the "the electrical nature of this field is well documented" (104) but gives no citations t o the claimed documentation. Rogers never takes her own advice to provide the "clear unequivocal concepts" needed for "a body of scientific knowledge" (81), and we are left w i t h no guidance as t o how t o detect or measure this field. She does get
very specific at one point and tells us that "A series of studies... were designed t o investigate the relationship between elec- trical potential differences, as measured by the Keithley Microvoltmeter, Model 153" (104). On what or where the potential dif- ferences were measured, a far more impor- tant piece of information, she does not report. In any case, it doesn't matter, for she then tells us that no positive results were obtained with this device, and the matter is dropped. Why then the specific mention of the piece of apparatus used? Because, I believe, Rogers felt t h a t it sounded impressive. Martha Rogers was not put off by con- tradictions in her theory. For example, she says, " A t death the human field ceases t o exist" (91), and also, a few paragraphs later, "The field projects into the future as well as into the past." She speaks of "delineating the boundary of the human field" with measuring instruments (113) and also that "The environment is defined as all that which is external to a given human field and is thus stated to be the environmental field" (97). But she also has told us that the human field extends to infinity in all direc- tions, so it has no boundary and nothing is external to it. Mathematics and symbolic notation are not ignored. Rogers, w i t h o u t an expla- nation of what topology is likely t o be able t o tell us, says, "A fundamental ques- t i o n needing exploration concerns the topology of the human f i e l d " (112). She introduces equations such as R = f(M>«Ei) which "can be read as: 'Reciprocy [R] is a function of the mutual interaction between the human field [M] and the environmental field [E]'" (97). The sub- scripts are never explained or even men- tioned. No use is made of the notation except as an alternative t o words: The only apparent justification for the symbolic form is t o introduce something that looks like mathematics into the book. Last, Rogers accepts sources uncriti- cally. "Further evidence of nature's law- fulness has come about t h r o u g h bio- rhythm research, expanded recognition of the cyclical nature of physical phenom- ena, and significant findings pointing up interrelationships between the t w o " (62). Biorhythms were a fad at the time she was w r i t i n g. She also thinks that "In recent years, scientific respectability has been granted t o the study of extrasensory phenomena. The existence of paranormal occurrences is well documented" (72). Perhaps often discussed, but not well doc- umented. Scientific respectability will be granted only when the supposed phe- nomena can repeatably produce positive results under conditions that rule out cheating and experimenter bias, an event for which w e are still waiting.
— Jef Raskin
3 4 September/October 2000 S K E P T I C A L I N Q U I R E R