In "Science and Sanity", general semantics is presented as both a theoretical and a practical system whose adoption can reliably alter human behavior in the direction of greater sanity. In the 1947 preface to the third edition of "Science and Sanity", Korzybski wrote: "We "need not" blind ourselves with the old dogma that 'human nature cannot be changed', for we find that it "can be changed"." However, in the opinion of a majority of psychiatrists, the tenets and practices of general semantics are not an effective way of treating patients with psychological or mental illnesses. While Korzybski considered his program to be empirically based and to strictly follow the scientific method, general semantics has been described as veering into the domain of pseudoscience.