A former faculty colleague and long-time friend of mine, Brian McAulay, D.C., PhD, recently wrote an excellent paper entitled, Language of the Philosophy of Chiropractic as a Barrier to Understanding (The Chiropractic Choice, February 2006) concerning the various and controversial definitions of innate intelligence and universal intelligence and how these terms create animosity within the profession because of their diverse meanings. Dr. McAulay suggests that some sort of chiropractic symposium be created to come to a consensus regarding these terms. I am in favor of any kind of philosophical discussion in chiropractic, but I have serious doubts about the success of such an endeavor. Further, I wonder how valuable the effort would be when we as a profession cannot come to a consensus regarding the definition of chiropractic!
The reason that we cannot agree on the definitions of universal and innate intelligence is because of such wide-spread thinking which is the real problem. Dr. McAulay points out the difficulty when he says that the profession explains innate intelligence in terms of everything from “Viz Medicatrix Naturae” to “God in human beings.” Those descriptions are pretty far apart to expect a consensus definition. That would be like an objective straight chiropractor and a National University of Health Science graduate coming to a consensus on the definition of chiropractic. Any consensus in chiropractic is virtually impossible because people in this profession have such strong feelings regarding their position and consensus requires compromise. Actually, any consensus or middle position would likely be the OSC definition. However, you are no more likely to get the “innatists,” those that accept a religious definition as given by D.D. and B.J., to accept a less spiritual description of innate intelligence than you are to get the broad scope chiropractors to accept a more vitalistic one. They are not interested in anything philosophical within the chiropractic profession. (See lead article). If they were to ever accept the phenomena that we call universal intelligence and innate intelligence into the chiropractic lexicon, the descriptive terms would have to be so watered down that they would be totally mechanistic, thereby denying the real essence of these terms. How can someone who believes that chiropractic should be devoid of vitalistic phenomena accept any term that describes our understanding of what innate intelligence means? On the other side, will a person who believes that their innate intelligence speaks to them and tells them where to set up an office be willing to abandon that concept for a less spiritual one? Can we get together on consensus? I would suggest that we can if everybody would be willing to accept my definition of innate intelligence. But wait, if everybody is willing to accept my definition, we really don’t have to come up with a new term, we can continue to use innate and universal intelligence. I am willing to get together to discuss the use of these terms. If for no other reason than to get the mechanistic extremists to admit that they see no need for a consensus on meaning because, in their opinion, no term describing a vitalistic phenomena belongs in chiropractic. Actually, I would really like to hear them take that position publicly because I believe that the vast majority of the profession accepts the idea of a vitalistic phenomena in chiropractic. It would prove that the “cult of scientism” that exists within our profession is divorced from mainstream thinking. V21n3