4 ms·

Important quote: > researchers do not yet know which insects were used, if they have any associated chemical properties or, most importantly, whether applying t

Important quote: > researchers do not yet know which insects were used, if they have any associated chemical properties or, most importantly, whether applying them to wounds has any health benefits. So it’s not known if the medicine is actually medicine or not

latch 5y ago
Which potentially makes their knowledge, in this specific case, greater than ours.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- eru 5y ago
  Why? Might just be placebo. But in any case, obviously chimpanzees have some areas of greater knowledge than we do. Eg I am sure any chimpanzee knows where the tastiest leaves are much better than I do.
  - cassianoleal 5y ago
    >> Which potentially makes their knowledge, in this specific case, greater than ours. > Why? Might just be placebo. I'm not GP but I believe the word "potentially" in their sentence means exactly that: it might just be placebo, but it also might be that they know something we don't.
    - latch 5y ago
      GP here: Yes, thanks. Plus it should be a bit obvious that knowledge of insects with pharmaceutical properties (objective) is not, in fact, the same thing as "knowledge" of what the "tastiest leaves are" (subjective).
asddubs 5y ago
to be fair, we were curing people with mercury not too long ago, so I say it still counts
wolverine876 5y ago
Let's take a step back: Chimpanzees may be using medicine! How is the efficacy of their medicine a question? Didn't you read the chimps' double-blind trial results (published in Nature, of course)? If the chimps built an airplane, would we say 'but it doesn't fly'? Or in case you mean you are an anti-chimp-vaxxer: In this case I agree: Don't trust chimp medicine! It's a fraud!
- tialaramex 5y ago
  > Don't trust chimp medicine! It's a fraud! The Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is built on the platform ChAdOx1. So named because it's a Chimpanzee Adenovirus tweaked by Oxford and thus was their first attempt (at least, the first that was worth testing in humans). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChAdOx1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChAdOx1 Although the RNA vaccines are the most famous demo of a new vaccine trick since the pandemic began, the next tier of COVID-19 vaccines were a different speed-up platform, find a virus that can successfully infect humans but doesn't do anything interesting (Adenoviruses are not a big deal) then bulk re-program it to make the protein you want to immunise against instead of copies of itself, tada - custom vaccine. It is unclear how re-usable this idea is exactly, but a pandemic was the perfect time to try it as scale.
- gus_massa 5y ago
  The idea of the GP is that if you know the exact plant, it's possible to make a chemical analysis if it and try to find a known drug that is produced by the plant and has been tested in humans or animals. Humans use a lot of snake oil, probably chimps too. Preregistered double blind randomized controlled clinical trials that are good enough to be published in a serious peer review journal is a trick to avoid that. Determining if some medical treatment is useful is very difficult. It may sound like a good idea, but it may be ineffective. For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronary_stent#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronary_stent#Controversy
zuminator 5y ago
There could be an analgesic or anesthetic element without providing health benefits per se.
ComputerGuru 5y ago
That means they’re even more similar to us given that humans practiced “medicine” that quite often didn’t help in a good chunk of the cases for a large part of their history.
rapnie 5y ago
Hmm, if there's no health effects, looking to similar practices humans do, it may well be an arcane religious ritual that is performed. Even more profound. /s
IgorPartola 5y ago
The idea of some chimps that uses alternative medicine because they fell for the marketing and are now homeopaths is somehow hilarious to me. I would imagine this makes us and chimps much more alike than if they just used actual medicine.

latch 5y ago

Which potentially makes their knowledge, in this specific case, greater than ours.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
eru 5y ago
Why? Might just be placebo. But in any case, obviously chimpanzees have some areas of greater knowledge than we do. Eg I am sure any chimpanzee knows where the tastiest leaves are much better than I do.
- cassianoleal 5y ago
  >> Which potentially makes their knowledge, in this specific case, greater than ours. > Why? Might just be placebo. I'm not GP but I believe the word "potentially" in their sentence means exactly that: it might just be placebo, but it also might be that they know something we don't.
  - latch 5y ago
    GP here: Yes, thanks. Plus it should be a bit obvious that knowledge of insects with pharmaceutical properties (objective) is not, in fact, the same thing as "knowledge" of what the "tastiest leaves are" (subjective).

asddubs 5y ago

to be fair, we were curing people with mercury not too long ago, so I say it still counts

wolverine876 5y ago

Let's take a step back: Chimpanzees may be using medicine! How is the efficacy of their medicine a question? Didn't you read the chimps' double-blind trial results (published in Nature, of course)? If the chimps built an airplane, would we say 'but it doesn't fly'? Or in case you mean you are an anti-chimp-vaxxer: In this case I agree: Don't trust chimp medicine! It's a fraud!

tialaramex 5y ago
> Don't trust chimp medicine! It's a fraud! The Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is built on the platform ChAdOx1. So named because it's a Chimpanzee Adenovirus tweaked by Oxford and thus was their first attempt (at least, the first that was worth testing in humans). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChAdOx1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChAdOx1 Although the RNA vaccines are the most famous demo of a new vaccine trick since the pandemic began, the next tier of COVID-19 vaccines were a different speed-up platform, find a virus that can successfully infect humans but doesn't do anything interesting (Adenoviruses are not a big deal) then bulk re-program it to make the protein you want to immunise against instead of copies of itself, tada - custom vaccine. It is unclear how re-usable this idea is exactly, but a pandemic was the perfect time to try it as scale.
gus_massa 5y ago
The idea of the GP is that if you know the exact plant, it's possible to make a chemical analysis if it and try to find a known drug that is produced by the plant and has been tested in humans or animals. Humans use a lot of snake oil, probably chimps too. Preregistered double blind randomized controlled clinical trials that are good enough to be published in a serious peer review journal is a trick to avoid that. Determining if some medical treatment is useful is very difficult. It may sound like a good idea, but it may be ineffective. For example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronary_stent#Controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronary_stent#Controversy

zuminator 5y ago

There could be an analgesic or anesthetic element without providing health benefits per se.

ComputerGuru 5y ago

That means they’re even more similar to us given that humans practiced “medicine” that quite often didn’t help in a good chunk of the cases for a large part of their history.

rapnie 5y ago

Hmm, if there's no health effects, looking to similar practices humans do, it may well be an arcane religious ritual that is performed. Even more profound. /s

IgorPartola 5y ago

The idea of some chimps that uses alternative medicine because they fell for the marketing and are now homeopaths is somehow hilarious to me. I would imagine this makes us and chimps much more alike than if they just used actual medicine.