3 ms·

But this is a problem of magnitude. What would you think of your baby's pediatrician if he/she starting pushing his/her unproven ideas as good practices that sh

by gfs78 8y ago

But this is a problem of magnitude. What would you think of your baby's pediatrician if he/she starting pushing his/her unproven ideas as good practices that should be followed by the medical community and writing about pushing against the objections when someone objects them?

meheleventyone 8y ago
At least from my perspective there is a ton of this sort of thing in the medical community. Lots of Doctors promote disproven ideas as good practices let alone unproven ones. A really concrete example is the funding of homeopathy by the NHS.
- gfs78 8y ago
  I'm not from the UK. I just took a glimpse at an article. From what I read some lobby got some funding for homeopathy which will not be granted anymore as there is no conclusive information that homeopathy really works. This seem like business lobbyists at their best. Someone got some money from some agreement, now he is not getting it anymore (and probably the money is going to some other lobbyists that played their cards better) It does not look like a case where we have a well known practitioner pushing practices just because.
  - meheleventyone 8y ago
    Yes very recently they stopped providing homeopathic treatment but were doing so for many years. The well known practitioner was the national health service of a country that was spending tax payers money on a treatment that provably doesn’t work. Plenty of Doctors well known and not want to and do continue to provide homeopathic practice. Likewise there is plenty of provably without medical benefit “complementary medicine” still funded by the NHS. This is very much due to Doctors pushing to provide these treatments because despite evidence they think they have merit. Which is worse than doing so with no or unequivocal evidence as in the programming practices case.
sanderjd 8y ago
This is totally how it works! There are also people trying to apply more empirical rigor, and presumably (or hopefully), once that's available, people switch to it. What I'm saying is that we aren't the only field that uses experience-based best practices as a way to get things done without making perfect the enemy of good.
- gfs78 8y ago
  Can you point me to a blog where a well know surgeon pushes the medical community to use some novel techniques he devised and supposedly uses but that have not been peer reviewed at least once?

by gfs78 8y ago

meheleventyone 8y ago

At least from my perspective there is a ton of this sort of thing in the medical community. Lots of Doctors promote disproven ideas as good practices let alone unproven ones. A really concrete example is the funding of homeopathy by the NHS.

gfs78 8y ago
I'm not from the UK. I just took a glimpse at an article. From what I read some lobby got some funding for homeopathy which will not be granted anymore as there is no conclusive information that homeopathy really works. This seem like business lobbyists at their best. Someone got some money from some agreement, now he is not getting it anymore (and probably the money is going to some other lobbyists that played their cards better) It does not look like a case where we have a well known practitioner pushing practices just because.
- meheleventyone 8y ago
  Yes very recently they stopped providing homeopathic treatment but were doing so for many years. The well known practitioner was the national health service of a country that was spending tax payers money on a treatment that provably doesn’t work. Plenty of Doctors well known and not want to and do continue to provide homeopathic practice. Likewise there is plenty of provably without medical benefit “complementary medicine” still funded by the NHS. This is very much due to Doctors pushing to provide these treatments because despite evidence they think they have merit. Which is worse than doing so with no or unequivocal evidence as in the programming practices case.

sanderjd 8y ago

This is totally how it works! There are also people trying to apply more empirical rigor, and presumably (or hopefully), once that's available, people switch to it. What I'm saying is that we aren't the only field that uses experience-based best practices as a way to get things done without making perfect the enemy of good.

gfs78 8y ago
Can you point me to a blog where a well know surgeon pushes the medical community to use some novel techniques he devised and supposedly uses but that have not been peer reviewed at least once?