Читать книгу Aging - Harry R. Moody - Страница 91
The Incomplete Paradigm
ОглавлениеThe growth of scientific knowledge historically has been impeded by thought systems (paradigms) that worked well for a time but that increasingly failed to explain new observations. For the study of aging, the contemporary paradigm is often called the medical model. The medical model defines health as the absence of disease and seeks to improve health by understanding and eradicating disease. This model of life and health, while useful, has obscured a larger perspective. There are four prevalent beliefs in the medical model that have proved to be limiting (see box). Certainly, few present scholars hold these beliefs literally, but these ideas nonetheless have largely defined contemporary opinion about the aging process.