This is bizarre to say the least. Fiona Phillips at the Mirror (yes, yes, this bastion of accurate news reporting, but anyway) presents her belief that Prince Charles will become a favorite among people -because apparently “he minds about people” and “he put [sic] his money where his mouth is when [...] he set up the Prince’s Trust“.

Fair enough, Prince Charles has set up the Prince’s Trust which helps young people stand on their feet in many ways.

But Prince Charles has also set up the Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health, which promotes unscientific medical modalities (such as homeopathy and acupuncture) under the misleading and disingenuous campaign slogans of “empowering the patient” and “integrative health system“. I mean, hey, who wouldn’t want choices? Who wouldn’t want an “integrated” health care system?

But people do not in fact need just choices. They need choices that work! And what does it mean “integrative” anyway? Who wants to integrate proven scientific medicine with unproven unscientific woo? It is like integrating wine with vinegar: will you get a better wine out of it?

So the Trusts and Foundations the Prince has set up cancel each other out I guess
And this is how Fiona Phillips supports her high opinion of the Prince:

He minds about the environment, GM foods, the use of homeopathy to complement conventional medicine, architecture, the treatment of animals in abattoirs.

He minds about Islam, organic food, and fairness.

Oh boy… Prince Charles has repeatedly demonstrated his ignorance and fallacious positions on the issues of Genetically Modified crops and Organic foods. From the Financial Times articles on the Prince’s positions:

He sees no need for greater world agricultural production, thinks big companies have caused serious damage to farming and genetic modification has been a disaster. The prince is mistaken on all counts.

It is worth reading the articles (they’re very short). The response from the academic and scientific community was immediate and -obviously- damning:

Phil Willis, chairman of the Commons science committee, said the use of science in farming had helped feed billions of people. “His lack of scientific understanding and his willingness to condemn millions of people to starvation in areas like sub-Saharan Africa is absolutely bewildering.”

His position on homeopathy and complementary medicine was already discussed briefly above. A search of the term “homeopathy” in this site will give you more evidence that the Prince does not understand science and maintains positions that are unsupported by evidence and reason.

But then again, perhaps such positions should really be expected by a man who has produced the following quote:

Science has tried to assume a monopoly – or, rather, a tyranny – over our understanding of the world around us . . . We are only now beginning to understand the disastrous results of this outlook