Iridology has been used in a mostly non-technical way, and often by amateurs or those without rigorous training in health-care. As a result, orthodox medicine has not seen the redeeming value in a field cluttered with erroneous and oversimplified belief. Lack of scientific and professional conduct among some iridologists has contributed to the perception of iridology as little more than fortune-telling. Color patterns in the iris are seen as having about the same significance as freckles on your face. The patterning is considered a random process without diagnostic value, however, in time both the iris color patterns as well as skin melanization may be recognized for what is can represent of the client's physiological status. It is interesting to note that "palm-reading" has benefited from scientific systematization and analysis by experts in fingerprint identification, who have developed a taxonomy of dermatoglyphs (skin patterns). A similar trend may be seen for the iris.

In addition to the above-mentioned problems with professionalism, the other hurdle for the medical approach is the concept of 'Reflex' which is the phenomenon of information referral via autonomic nervous system, ch'i meridians and other more subtle energy pathways throughout the body. Orthodox medicine does not recognize phenomena that is too subtle to detect with instrumentation, much less the possibility that health in terms of structural and operational status can be indicated in patterns having a direct correspondence mapping to the whole body, appearing in the iris or any other part of the body.

-- Jon (jon@milesresearch.com), March 30, 1999