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Actually it's a warning against making lazy assumptions, trite dismissals, and generally being an asshole, because of the human consequences. There's no appeal
by inopinatus 3y ago
Actually it's a warning against making lazy assumptions, trite dismissals, and generally being an asshole, because of the human consequences. There's no appeal to authority, because that is an argument to support a claim, and no claim has been made. This here is rhetoric, subtype pathos: I merely ask you to imagine yourself in the shoes of someone that competent. If you've never met someone that competent and thereby doubt their literal existence, then I'm sorry for you.
Make your own statement, sure, don't twist the words of mine to say something they didn't.
Edit to add, more bluntly: the assumption of incompetence seems to me as much a fallacy (perhaps of the general class of attribution bias) as any argument from authority. I will now be so bold as to make a claim, or even a series of claims: that humanity continues to push back the boundaries of ignorance, and that is what we call science, via the process of research, and it is a process driven by people, often well-meaning people many of whom put their heart & soul into it, and notwithstanding the myriad inefficiencies and inequities in the system, it is not depressing at all.
- A_D_E_P_T 3y agoWhat you were responding to was hardly a lazy assumption, and there was nothing rude about it. > "I merely ask you to imagine yourself in the shoes of someone that competent." The principle of nullius in verba must apply regardless of how competent one imagines researchers are. If you've spotted a potential methodological problem, you can't just imagine it's solved or handwave it away. You should have a look for yourself and see how it was solved, if solved it was.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- inopinatus 3y agoIf that is your view then we are hardly in contradiction, except in our reading of the original remark. The exemplary individual I described earlier would undoubtedly also look backwards, at what mistakes were made, but also forward, to what improvements can be found. quo me cumque rapit tempestas. Again, this is not a depressing sentiment.
- zaptheimpaler 3y agoOne part of either this post or the next one talks about how pharmaceutical companies are the ones making the entry criteria, and a doctor agreeing they were silly and telling the pharma that, but nothing changed.. the companies in turn have incentives to make results look good and have a known tendency to pick the healthiest possible subjects. I agree about those doctors probably being competent but incentives are twisted and no one can extrapolate perfectly from an unrepresentative sample on an unknown drug, not even doctors or the drug creators.
- lozenge 3y agoThe claim was in the article (well, part 3) and supported by people who work in the field. The fact a bad outcome comes from well-meaning people doesn't make it less depressing.
- inopinatus 3y agoNo. a) Research has and continues to improve and lengthen life. That is not a bad outcome. Anyone thinking otherwise can fuck off to the prescientific luddite timeline they deserve. Can the system be better? Sure. Can we save everyone? Not yet. b) It was clearly my comment being alleged to contain such an argument. I would not bother defending anything written in the article. Telling me my own remark is an argument in favour of something no-one even mentioned? Get real.