Libera Università degli Studi di Scienze Umane e Tecnologiche
SCIENCE, PSEUDOSCIENCE and scientific goals of UNILUDES:
The choice of and the interest shown by the Free LUDES University in Biometeorology, Space Medicine, Pharmacology and Ethnopharmacology are the reason for my presence in this Free Swiss University.
Since the very beginning of my career I have been concerned with the following scientific studies:
- Action mechanisms of drugs.
- Physiological mechanisms of pain and their relevant pharmacology.
- Problems related to Clinical Pharmacology:
- Pharmacokinetics in animals and in man;
- Prevention of the Drug-related Damage and damages caused by drugs abuse;
- Physiological and pathological mechanisms of drug addictions;
- Study of environmental pollutants in the organism and their pharmaco-toxicological significance and drugs interaction.
- New pharmaco-toxicological investigation methods saving animals and by means of substances useful for the detection of new potential drugs coming from the vegetable and animal Kingdom, biotechnology and synthesis.
- Ethnopharmacological study of drug plants from Samos Island and the long-lived people in Kokkari, involved in an Unesco project carried out in the University of L’Aquila called an intercontinental park in the Aegean Sea.
- Study of the environment as a “drug” (Air and its lonisation, waters, soils, springs and ground water) and its safeguard and protection from pollution for: vegetables for dietary use (collaboration of the Institute of Pharmacology from the University of L’Aquila for the realisation of the carrot having a registered designation of origin in Avezzano), waters, springs and thermal muds for the identification of their “pharmacological” and completion actions to chronic therapies with drugs.
- Development of behaviour methods and medical surgical pharmacological and non-pharmacological aids for:
- Prevention from aging damages
- Prevention from extreme and/or competition sport damages
- Optimal athletic preparation
- Psycho-physical preparation of subjects for aviation and space medicine.
Thanks to these skills, the scientific collaboration with this Free Swiss University will focus on the following topics:
- Optimal theoretical-practical education of final year students in Physiotherapy and Osteopathy from UNILUDES.
- Setting up of a Pharmacological and Toxicological Research Centre
- Setting up a Microdyalitic Research Centre studying the mechanism of pharmacological reactions of the different cell populations making up living organisms.
- Wide study collaborations, national and international works.
Our study and collaboration goals, highlighted by the World Federation of Scientists, will be the following:
- Soil and Water
- Food
- Energy
- Pollution
- Limits of Development
- Climatic Changes
- Global Monitoring of the Planet
- Science and Technology for Developing Countries
- Medicine and Biotechnology
- Cultural Pollution
A “pseudoscience” is characterised by some of the following aspects:
- Statements without experimental tests or in contradiction with other experimental results
- Statements which are impossible to prove or refute;
- Tendency to usually change the nature of its assertions in order to avoid criticism;
- Introduction of experimental results evading peer reviews (the so-called “science by press conference”);
- Violation of the principle stating that, in order to prove a theory, one has not to make more assumptions than it is strictly necessary;
- Declaration of a presumed ostracism of “official science” due to narrowness of mind and economical interests.
The prefix pseudo (from the Greek pseudos, false) means that pseudoscience is made to appear scientific but does not adhere to the criteria of scientific research; of course, this doesn’t exclude that some pseudoscientific theories may have a scientific value from a historical or philosophical point of view.
Prof. Giancarlo Pantaleoni
