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>Using the words "hypotheses" or "scientific discussion" doesn't make those things hypotheses or scientific discussion. The first takes place within the paramet

>Using the words "hypotheses" or "scientific discussion" doesn't make those things hypotheses or scientific discussion. The first takes place within the parameters of experimentation, and the latter in papers and journals. As a scientist, I can definitively say this is false. Both these things happen over beers quite frequently. To further If science only happened in labs and journals, how did we ever get to the point where those things existed? Edit: to pre-empt the likely rebuttal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Research_Conferences https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Research_Conferences

threatofrain 5y ago
I mean, we're talking about medicine and vaccines, right? As a scientist, what kind of medicine are we talking about here? And what kind of vaccine research are we talking about here? Is it not obvious that some kinds of scientific and medical practice must always be severely gated in all modern societies because of its extreme and intimate relationship to public health and trust? And when we're talking about medicine or vaccines, we are talking about human research subjects. What would amateur empiricism in medicine and vaccination even mean here? When you talk about the foundations of early medical science, you're not referring to Gray's Anatomy dig-up-the-bodies-in-the-graveyard style of original human research, right? You surely don't have a modern vision of amateur medical research with human subjects, right? In the historical context that stuff is breathtaking and pioneering. In the modern context that would be breathtaking for another reason.
pwinnski 5y ago
A hypotheses formed over beers but never tested outside the bar is like most other beer-centered conversation: of limited value. Science communication, similarly, can start anywhere, but what you're describing has a very tenuous relationship with people talking on YouTube. I'm all for people doing science having as much flexibility as they want, up to the point where what they're doing is no longer science. People forming ex post facto hypotheses based on carefully-chosen data, or bypassing any peer-review in favor of YouTube communication, that should raise serious alarms bells for anyone in the sciences.

threatofrain 5y ago

I mean, we're talking about medicine and vaccines, right? As a scientist, what kind of medicine are we talking about here? And what kind of vaccine research are we talking about here? Is it not obvious that some kinds of scientific and medical practice must always be severely gated in all modern societies because of its extreme and intimate relationship to public health and trust? And when we're talking about medicine or vaccines, we are talking about human research subjects. What would amateur empiricism in medicine and vaccination even mean here? When you talk about the foundations of early medical science, you're not referring to Gray's Anatomy dig-up-the-bodies-in-the-graveyard style of original human research, right? You surely don't have a modern vision of amateur medical research with human subjects, right? In the historical context that stuff is breathtaking and pioneering. In the modern context that would be breathtaking for another reason.

pwinnski 5y ago

A hypotheses formed over beers but never tested outside the bar is like most other beer-centered conversation: of limited value. Science communication, similarly, can start anywhere, but what you're describing has a very tenuous relationship with people talking on YouTube. I'm all for people doing science having as much flexibility as they want, up to the point where what they're doing is no longer science. People forming ex post facto hypotheses based on carefully-chosen data, or bypassing any peer-review in favor of YouTube communication, that should raise serious alarms bells for anyone in the sciences.