Posted 30 January 2007 - 08:43 PM
That's a bit of the kettle calling the pot black....
But here's the rub. Either I and my colleagues are lucky or just plain nuts, but everything I do every day in the office is based on excellent science. There is science, which includes some pretty boring but necessary stuff, such as chemistry, organic chemistry, biochemistry and the like. There is other science that includes the study of living organisms, including biology, physiology, etc. There is science which overlaps all of these.
And then there is medical science, which looks at diverse stuff such as etiology and natural history of disease states, genetics, growth and development, ageing, etc.
Then there are, as we've been discussing, simple statistical "data-gathering" studies, which attempt to correlate a vast amount of seemingly disparate information. Some of these studies take generations. There are some studies underway that will gather data for 100 years!
Then there are pharmaceutical studies, which run the gamut from test tube analysis to rat/monkey to human clinical trials. Some of those studies are safety/efficacy studies. Some of those are comparative studies. All of these studies are VERY different and utilize VERY different aspects of "science" with the ultimate goal of learning the truth about health and hopefully treatments for disease (and/or prevention).
The scientist studying the life cycle of virus particle in a petrie dish is very different from the scientist studying anti-viral agents in a lab, and he is very different from the Infectious disease scientist studying the effects of disease in a population and he is different from the epidemiologists who study disease transmission and they are different from the pharmaceutical scientists who study remedies, vaccines, etc. and they are very different from the research clinicians who design population studies for testing products in humans, etc. and so on. In the end, the work of all of them leads to items like Polio vaccines, or treatment for Hepatitis C virus, (can you believe I am CURING folks with Hep C? THAT wasn't even a remotely possible idea when I was in medical school) or HIV (how many of my patients died, but now they just take a pill!!!! and all that in 25 year!!!! )etc. to name a few. Or acyclovir, which I was able to give to an 80 year old woman with shingles in her eye today (and who, as a result WON'T go blind). (we didn't have that cure to offer just a few years ago......)Where do you think that's all coming from? Chanting? The Book of Spells?
And if you look at a recent text book of human physiology you will see the ENORMOUS amount of knowledge we have (one of your answers suggested that it was "naive" to think we knew anything....)
So, wrapping up this gentle rant, one cannot lump so much critisicm at "science" as you seemed to be doing in your reply.
The sciences are pumping along with great efficiency. The beauty of it all is that we all admit we are all learning. That's why we present articles and studies for open criticism. That's why we doubt our results and test and test again. That's we learn not to get too attached to results, lest we fall prey to dogma. And the search and seeking for better knowledge continues.
mm
