Jutting from almost every issue of a journal called Medical Hypotheses are articles that, in the editor’s opinion, may be wrong or wrong-headed. One is called Losing weight by defecating at night, another Why do gentlemen prefer blondes? These, and 98 other head-scratchers, each tinged with flecks of madness, genius, or cunning perversity, provide the raw material for a book called Death Can Be Cured.
In the journal, this peppering of little, odd essays serves as both spice and provocation. Editor Bruce Charlton suspects that at least a few of them contain useful insights, and that each can stir up useful debates.
Medical Hypotheses publishes clever guesses about medical mysteries. Most of the world’s several thousand other medical journals do, too. But Medical Hypotheses is unusual in that (1) it admits doing it and (2) it publishes nothing else. No “now we know the real story” medical case reports. No “thus it is proved” experimental results. Just hypotheses….
So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.