Science and EBM vs. theory

[mordantcarnival]

I've actually been trying to write something about this for years now--literally years, like 7 or 8. But every time I come back to the topic, I feel like I'm drowning. Suffocating. About a month or so ago I came across a PDF on the topic which I thought might make a good jumping-on point, as it specifically tries to use the tools of post-

Comments

[traballenguas]

Lots of doctors are dicks about this, too. Because they possess the special pixie dust of "gut feelings" that can't be challenged by facts.

I guess I get the same vibe from Spanish people who smoke, with the devastating logic that "you have to die of something". Like, I got this great link from a friend about the first tests of the smallpox vaccine:

http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/trial_records/17th_18th_Century/boylston/boylston-commentary.html

I love this:

"Variolation, known in the 18th century as inoculation, was introduced almost simultaneously in Boston and London in the early 1720s (Huth 2006). A furious debate followed. Among the issues were the religious implications of interfering with divine providence, and the legality of spreading a potentially fatal infection; and whether the disease induced really was smallpox, and whether it was safer than natural smallpox, and induced immunity."

Man, every huge corporation should use that argument - "we can't put air bags in our cars - that would be interfering with divine providence!!!"

It is kind of the same argument.

PS There is lots of great fun in the fact that they were experimenting on children. The mind boggles.