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Ultimately, the issue is this: it costs less overall for the author to just comply with the standard way studies are done, than for the committee to carve out a

by vacri 9y ago

Ultimately, the issue is this: it costs less overall for the author to just comply with the standard way studies are done, than for the committee to carve out and justify exceptions just for his study. The author complains of the IRB not doing Methods 101. Perhaps the author should have done Methods 201, then he would understand the concerns (which many human experimenters in this thread have elaborated on). As stated elsewhere, so many of the author's wounds are self-inflicted.

BurningFrog 9y ago
The author's point is not that his time was wasted. It's that the system is broken. Sure, he could have spent a lot of time and effort to learn and adapt to the broken system, and his study would have been done, and fewer people would perhaps be misdiagnosed. But the point is that it shouldn't be this hard to make the world a better place.
- vacri 9y ago
  The IRB is there to protect innocent subjects from malicious studies. It's not that the system is 'broken', it's just 'not perfect'. It's actually been pretty disturbing to read this whole thread. So many HNers who complain endlessly about the relatively trivial metadata that corporations collect on us and sell, they would quite happily get rid of this committee that ensures any studies done on them meet minimum ethical requirements and ensure that subjects know that they're being tested on. Read the responses in this thread from other people who have done studies on humans that requires passing through one of these committees. Actual people who know what they're for rather than armchair critics. All of them present the same opinion: IRB's are annoying and sometimes a little frustrating, but thank god they're there, because they protect the public. Every researcher is going to claim that their study will cure cancer, but not every researcher is being truthful (because they're humans, after all), and plenty of researchers don't care if they hurt their subjects in order to add a feather to their caps.
imgabe 9y ago
The nature of scientific research ensures that there can be no "standard way studies are done". When you are trying to discover entirely new things, you will undoubtedly come into new situations that were not accounted for when the standardization is created. It may be inconvenient, but advancing human knowledge does require that humans use their capacity to reason and examine circumstances on an individual basis rather than mindlessly checking boxes on some one-size-fits-all form.
- vacri 9y ago
  Well, since you're arguing against standards in scientific research, then we may as well disband NIST and get rid of SI units.

by vacri 9y ago

BurningFrog 9y ago

The author's point is not that his time was wasted. It's that the system is broken. Sure, he could have spent a lot of time and effort to learn and adapt to the broken system, and his study would have been done, and fewer people would perhaps be misdiagnosed. But the point is that it shouldn't be this hard to make the world a better place.

vacri 9y ago
The IRB is there to protect innocent subjects from malicious studies. It's not that the system is 'broken', it's just 'not perfect'. It's actually been pretty disturbing to read this whole thread. So many HNers who complain endlessly about the relatively trivial metadata that corporations collect on us and sell, they would quite happily get rid of this committee that ensures any studies done on them meet minimum ethical requirements and ensure that subjects know that they're being tested on. Read the responses in this thread from other people who have done studies on humans that requires passing through one of these committees. Actual people who know what they're for rather than armchair critics. All of them present the same opinion: IRB's are annoying and sometimes a little frustrating, but thank god they're there, because they protect the public. Every researcher is going to claim that their study will cure cancer, but not every researcher is being truthful (because they're humans, after all), and plenty of researchers don't care if they hurt their subjects in order to add a feather to their caps.

imgabe 9y ago

The nature of scientific research ensures that there can be no "standard way studies are done". When you are trying to discover entirely new things, you will undoubtedly come into new situations that were not accounted for when the standardization is created. It may be inconvenient, but advancing human knowledge does require that humans use their capacity to reason and examine circumstances on an individual basis rather than mindlessly checking boxes on some one-size-fits-all form.

vacri 9y ago
Well, since you're arguing against standards in scientific research, then we may as well disband NIST and get rid of SI units.