title: [Scientific Positioning of Traditional Chinese Medicine].
abstract: Whether traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) could be categorized as a kind of science or not has been a controversial issue over last century. Part of the confusion is caused by the indistinguishable usage of Chinese words "science" and "scientific" during discussion. According to western academic standards, TCM cannot be considered as pure or conventional science. However, in author's view, the foundation of a majority part of TCM practice is probably scientific, while many TCM theories remain unproved. In this article, medical theories and practices are classified based on scientific content into eight levels: medical science, scientific medicine, medical system, medical theory, medical opinion, medical belief, medical cultism, and medical fraud. Both Western medicine and TCM are positioned in this system accordingly. Currently, the scientific level of TCM is much lower than that of Western medicine, and more research is needed for its improvement.
authors.forename: Yong-ming
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: Li
mesh_terms: D035843:Biomedical Research; D006801:Humans; D008516:Medicine, Chinese Traditional / Q000592:standards*