Fighting on a false issue

The fact that science has had to fight so hard to secure the recognition of certain treatments makes them sorely jealous for that right. And when they hear a popular outcry for the suppression of chemotherapy, for example, which has an air of being scientific, their first instinct is to rally to the defence of that method without further consideration, with the result that they sometimes, as in the case of chemotherapy, presently find themselves fighting on a false issue.