4 ms·

Yes and no. Curing cancer is going to take more than "traditional chinese medicine and the many energies". But it's not written that it's going to require 4 yea

by hooande 14y ago

Yes and no. Curing cancer is going to take more than "traditional chinese medicine and the many energies". But it's not written that it's going to require 4 years of college and 4 more years of medical school. You do still need experts, but there's no theoretical limit to the contribution from people without formal training. People can develop an incredibly deep level of knowledge about a narrow topic of interest to them (ie, life threatening illness). The internet is a thing now...people can can learn and share a remarkable amount of information. Even new purely academic research is made public after a few months. The idea of "open source cancer treatment" is a very promising one. This v. 0.1 may not be the best. But if this is like any other new idea or technology, in 5-10 years we could be seeing the most valuable product of crowdsourcing.

ekianjo 14y ago
The idea of having medical "experts" is that they have credentials you can rely on. How can you tell if someone is a self-taught expert or a quack ? What kind of reputation system to build on this ? How do you deal with responsibility in case something very wrong occurs? I think it is an interesting direction, but I would rather be in favor of large-scale statistical models on all treatments taken by patients with similar profiles/conditions if all medical records could be made available (anonymously).
- Alex3917 14y ago
  "How can you tell if someone is a self-taught expert or a quack?" You read the sources they're citing. Which is exactly the same way you evaluate whether or not a doctor knows what they're talking about. "What kind of reputation system to build on this ?" Does it really matter? Either their sources pan out or they don't. "How do you deal with responsibility in case something very wrong occurs?" The responsibility is all on you, the same as if you decide to do something a normal doctor recommends.
  - ekianjo 14y ago
    > The responsibility is all on you, the same as if you decide to do something a normal doctor recommends. I am not sure if you know, but Health Care Professionals do share some part of responsibilities. When a treatment goes wrong, if you can prove that their choice was made on shaky assumptions or doubtful logic, they can legally be sued and asked for reparations. > You read the sources they're citing. For sure you have never looked at the clinical trial sources to reply in such a simple way. Have you ever read a clinical trial report? There is no way of telling that the results were not rigged, that it was not pure luck (as failed studies are generally not published) and that the results are applicable to your case. It may be easy to do in other fields, but in medicine there is no such thing as full data transparency.
    - Alex3917 14y ago
      "When a treatment goes wrong, if you can prove that their choice was made on shaky assumptions or doubtful logic, they can legally be sued and asked for reparations." While doctors can and should be forced to compensate victims if they fuck up, the issue of how compensation works is only loosely related to the issue of fault. E.g. if a doctor leaves a pair of scissors in you then you're not at fault at all, but if a doctor tells you to take some drug and you don't look up the interactions and end up killing yourself then both you and the doctor are equally at fault, though you may still get a similar compensation in both cases. "Have you ever read a clinical trial report? There is no way of telling that the results were not rigged, that it was not pure luck (as failed studies are generally not published) and that the results are applicable to your case." While this is true, doctors have all the same problems; that is, the information they're going on is just as bad.

by hooande 14y ago

ekianjo 14y ago

The idea of having medical "experts" is that they have credentials you can rely on. How can you tell if someone is a self-taught expert or a quack ? What kind of reputation system to build on this ? How do you deal with responsibility in case something very wrong occurs? I think it is an interesting direction, but I would rather be in favor of large-scale statistical models on all treatments taken by patients with similar profiles/conditions if all medical records could be made available (anonymously).

Alex3917 14y ago
"How can you tell if someone is a self-taught expert or a quack?" You read the sources they're citing. Which is exactly the same way you evaluate whether or not a doctor knows what they're talking about. "What kind of reputation system to build on this ?" Does it really matter? Either their sources pan out or they don't. "How do you deal with responsibility in case something very wrong occurs?" The responsibility is all on you, the same as if you decide to do something a normal doctor recommends.
- ekianjo 14y ago
  > The responsibility is all on you, the same as if you decide to do something a normal doctor recommends. I am not sure if you know, but Health Care Professionals do share some part of responsibilities. When a treatment goes wrong, if you can prove that their choice was made on shaky assumptions or doubtful logic, they can legally be sued and asked for reparations. > You read the sources they're citing. For sure you have never looked at the clinical trial sources to reply in such a simple way. Have you ever read a clinical trial report? There is no way of telling that the results were not rigged, that it was not pure luck (as failed studies are generally not published) and that the results are applicable to your case. It may be easy to do in other fields, but in medicine there is no such thing as full data transparency.
  - Alex3917 14y ago
    "When a treatment goes wrong, if you can prove that their choice was made on shaky assumptions or doubtful logic, they can legally be sued and asked for reparations." While doctors can and should be forced to compensate victims if they fuck up, the issue of how compensation works is only loosely related to the issue of fault. E.g. if a doctor leaves a pair of scissors in you then you're not at fault at all, but if a doctor tells you to take some drug and you don't look up the interactions and end up killing yourself then both you and the doctor are equally at fault, though you may still get a similar compensation in both cases. "Have you ever read a clinical trial report? There is no way of telling that the results were not rigged, that it was not pure luck (as failed studies are generally not published) and that the results are applicable to your case." While this is true, doctors have all the same problems; that is, the information they're going on is just as bad.