Anthroposophic medicine departs from fundamental biological principles in several respects. For example, Steiner said that the heart does not pump blood but that blood propels itself along.[1] Anthroposophic medicine also proposes that patients' past lives may influence their illness[2] and that the course of an illness is subject to karmic destiny.[3] Professor of complementary medicine Edzard Ernst and other physicians and scientists including Simon Singh and David Gorski have characterized anthroposophic medicine as pseudoscientific quackery[4][5] with no basis in reason or logic.[6][13][14][15]