6 ms·
Imagine the following. Here's the spectrum of medical knowledge: ----------------------------------------- Here's where we were in the dark ages: --|-------
by garbagetime 6y ago
Imagine the following.
Here's the spectrum of medical knowledge:
-----------------------------------------
Here's where we were in the dark ages:
--|--------------------------------------
Here's where we are now:
-------|---------------------------------
Here's where people like to think we are:
------------------|----------------------
In this scenario it seems like what you're saying and what your parent said are both true (it is true both that medicine is much closer to the dark ages than we'd like to think, and also that we know a great deal more than we knew in the dark ages).
- adriand 6y agoBut then we’re in the dark ages for everything, except maybe siege warfare. So it becomes a meaningless comment.
- garbagetime 6y agoHow do you figure?
- yreg 6y agoYes, on a scale of dark ages to understanding a field perfectly, it's no surprise we are closer to the dark ages. Well, perhaps we understand basic algebra pretty well.
- adrianN 6y agoLife would be pretty boring if it were different don't you think? If almost everything were already figured out after just a few centuries of the scientific method and we wouldn't expect any substantial improvements to be made ever.
- shock 6y agoNo, one's life would not be boring because of that. There's a difference between things being known to sience and _you_ knowing those things. Even now, you can live your full lifespan without getting bored just learning in depth what is already known to science.
- hamilyon2 6y agoI could think of other examples. I mean, we know for sure that electrical motors are not going to be hugely more efficient, because then they will break conservation of energy and bunch of other laws of physics. So, by that measure we are not in dark ages
- DonHopkins 6y agoYet we power them by burning coal.
- WJW 6y agoWhat does that have to do with the efficiency of electric motors? They don't magically get more efficient if you power them with a wind turbine.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- korijn 6y agoYou seem to imply/think that there is a finite endpoint to your x-axis. I think that is the _real_ misconception here.
- garbagetime 6y agoI think the point is equally well demonstrated if you add an ellipses to the right-hand side of the spectrum.
- TropicalAudio 6y agoI'd say "medical knowledge" is too broad of a term to define a finite full spectrum in reasonable terms, as it effectively includes every possible interaction of each part of the human body with every type of physical or chemical condition. More reasonable would be to talk about "anatomical knowledge", which is finitely bound to understanding the expected structure/distribution, function of and communication between each part of the human body to a sub-cell level. We're most of the way there on the first facet, but our models of the latter two are still hilariously incomplete at this point.
- crispyporkbites 6y agoPeople can only see progress and have no idea where we actually are until they look back in retrospect, so I think it's more accurate to say: Here's where we were in the dark ages: -|--------------------------------------- Here's where we are now: ---|------------------------------------- Here's where people thought we were in the dark ages: ----------------------------|------------ Here's where people like to think we are today: ------------------------------|----------
- et2o 6y agoAlright, but on the range from nothing to perfect, we are... Far more than 2x the dark ages. More like 1000x.
- wadkar 6y agoProgress doesn’t end one day, it’s a process. So what matters is the rate at which we make progress.
- JackFr 6y agoChuck Klosterman's book "But What If We're Wrong: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past" examines this phenomenon, and while its difficult to make predictions (that's one of the takeaways) it's a terrific lens to look at both the present and the past. (One of my favorite chapters is imagining 1000 years into the future, where rock and roll is basically only remembered for one artist, who might that be? And why it won't be Elvis or the Beatles.)
- fn1 6y agoSince that axis really cannot be constructed, I think a better way to present your sentiment is the following: Is it possible that we still miss a large discovery in medicine, akin to the introduction of evidence-based treatment, hygiene, inoculations or the discovery of DNA?
- kristopolous 6y agoAbsolutely, without question. Dozens, maybe hundreds of things that big. The arrogant assumption of an infinite wisdom of the present is one of the strongest there is. Ptolemaic astronomy looked right until Galileo came along. It matched observational measurements, just with an unhelpful set of assumptions. We're Ptolemy on countless things whose Galileos haven't been born yet. It's unsettling to think we're all stupid in ways we'll never know, I know. Sorry about that.
- m463 6y agoI'm reminded of the scene in Mad Men where Roger says something to the effect of "I did everything they said for my ulcer, I drank the buttermilk. and now I have a coronary!" Also, in the book "The King of Hearts" which describes the history of open heart surgery, the first open heart surgeries were done by sewing the circulatory system of two people together (usually mother and child). that was in the recent past.
- et2o 6y agoWe have advanced incredibly far in both treatment of CAD and ulcers. And in CAD, still making tremendous improvements within the last ten years. You don’t really know what you’re talking about at all, citing a TV show.
- halfmatthalfcat 6y agoLOL they're making a point using the TV show quote as an analogy to the OP's sentiment, not commenting literally on CAD and ulcers.
- m463 6y agoHa, the show was making a joke and it was relevant. The point I was making was that in our short lifetimes common medical practices have change directions 180 degrees. The guy who drank h pylori was in our lifetime. I wonder what common problems and solutions we have today will be changed in the coming 30 years? Maybe there will be a cancer or fat pill and we can eat what we want. Maybe sugar will be banned. Maybe longevity might be conquered? Maybe covid-19 will be viewed like the black plague, which is well understood now.
- christkv 6y agoYou might find the book The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine interesting. Crazy to think that the training to become a surgeon led to a lot of people dying from cutting into infected cadavers during training.
- 6y ago
- LanceH 6y agoAlong these lines I've heard it said that "Doctors don't heal anyone. The get them to the point where their bodies can heal themselves." Sure, there are some exceptions where the body literally can't heal itself, like reattaching something, but the sentiment holds true most of the time. In another discussion bred from boredom where some friends and I were trying to define entire fields of study in a single sentence (Economics is the allocation of scarcity) one doctor said, "Medicine is about controlling swelling." His response (he was a surgeon) kind of made your point that we imagine that doctors are fixing things and he is saying that he spent most of his time trying to get the body to make it better and not worse.
- sy7ar 6y agoI have to agree with this. Before I have to exhaust all the medical resources, in my mind, when people get sick, they go see a doctor, the doctor prescribes medicine, and medicine fixes problems. But in reality we're still largely relying on our own defense, e.g. COVID. We rarely have a drug that directly fixes our problem. I started having really bad insomnia more than a year ago. I went to see a bunch of doctors. Initially, I was given low dosage sleeping pills, which didn't help much. I went to a hospital to get a CT scan because I was having mad headaches, which my family doctor wouldn't refer me. The scan was normal. Finally, I found a doctor who's willing to refer me MRI scan. After waiting for couple of months, the result didn't turn up anything again. Keep in mind I've been suffering 2 - 3 hours sleep a day all these time. I also did sleep study, and sleep study mostly care about sleep apnea, so they couldn't identify any causes again. Then I went to see a psychiatrist, more sleeping pills, which are really antidepressants. Eventually, after a long wait, I was referred to a neurologist and sleep specialist. I've done so much research on sleep medicine at this point, I already knew what he's gonna prescribe me - sleep restriction therapy. That didn't really help altho I gave up after trying for two weeks. I intend to try it again but I can't attempt it now that I'm back to work. So one year later, I'm still messed up with no known cause. I know insomnia in my case is not a traditional disease, but it goes to show you that if you're not having one of the common diseases then you're shit out of luck. The human body's extremely complex, but instead of using proper debugging tools, doctors are mostly relying on "console logs" or "print statements". Even if a root cause is identified, often time we don't have the necessary tools to fix the problems.