4 ms·
It usually takes about a generation for bad ideas to pass.
by Andys 16y ago
It usually takes about a generation for bad ideas to pass.
- irrelative 16y agoIt's too bad that this is the case for facts as well as ideas. Ideally science can turn on a dime when the data is overwhelming, but in practice there's a huge lag.
- stretchwithme 16y agoIt depends on whether government gets behind a bad idea or not. Bureaucracy doesn't like diversity of thought and tends to reinforce current thinking. Look at how long its taken for alternative medicine to get blessed.
- demallien 16y agoHuh? Bad example. "Alternative medecine" that actually works just becomes "medecine". The fact that this happens rarely is due to the fact that most products marketed as alternative medecine are a crock and don't hold up when tested. If anything, the fact that government allows these things to be marketed at all is a perfect example of bureaucracy accepting diversity of thought (when it really shouldn't!)
- Andys 16y agoI'd rather the government accept medicines with centuries of empirical evidence than lab-synthesised chemicals which have been pushed rapidly through official process using cherry-picked clinical trials and promises of lucrative paid positions for soon-to-be-ex-FDA officials.
- Robin_Message 16y agoThat is a false dichotomy and you know it. What you want, and everyone wants, is fair, unbiased testing of any medicine, regardless of origin. Peer reviewed science and FDA approval tests are not perfect, but in the vast majority of cases they are better than "centuries of empirical evidence." The placebo effect is very real; if people are paying money, betting their lives, and putting potentially dangerous compounds into their bodies (whatever the origin), then we'd like better than that. Also, I would add that alternative medicines tend to fail by not working at all, whereas (what we'll call) lab medicines tend to fail by having unforeseen, unexpected, longer-term side effects.
- demallien 16y agoCitation needed. But seriously, as far as I'm aware (and I try to stay current on this topic), there is no 'medicine' out there with "centuries of empirical evidence" that isn't already accepted. There are loads of compounds that claim to be effective, but when tested they are found to be no better than placebo. Even if a compound is found to be effective, it isn't enough to make a good medicine. The active ingredient needs to be identified, extracted, and stabilised in a product that allows doctors to safely control the dose that a patient receives. Skipping all of that work and just trying to take an uncontrolled substance is dangerous - you can't tell if the active compound has broken down, or just isn't present in a particular sample, or conversely, is present in dangerous amounts. Furthermore, the naturally occurring compound may have other, undesirable compounds included with it. Modern medicine aims to control for all of this, and yes, the complexity can be off-putting compared to the simplicity of "natural" solutions, but there are good reasons for that complexity existing.