As a clinician-academic who published in The Lancet during medical school, I think this goes a bit far. Unfortunately student doctors are encouraged to publish whether or not they actually have an interest in research… but that shouldn’t discount the work of those who are genuinely engaged.

But certainly we should always approach the literature critically, including the author list, journal of publication and its peer-review practices, and the methods.

I was severely disillusioned about the quality of clinical studies.

Would you publish if the head honcho of your double-blind study insists to know what treatment a certain patient is receiving?

You have this discussion about research ethics and subsequent beratement once, and then you either mentally check out or go to another hospital.

> student doctors are encouraged to publish whether or not they actually have an interest in research… but that shouldn’t discount the work of those who are genuinely engaged.

How do you propose the interested public make the distinction between genuine engagement and forced encouragement? Isn't it the task of journals to make that distinction before publishing? I don't think you can fault the public for dismissing everything out of hand when both academia and the journals are actively turning scientific publishing into a market for lemons.

It is my (unpopular I suspect) opinion that the contents of medical or other academic journals is not intended for consumption by the “interested public” as much as I can understand the desire to do so.

That’s not the same as saying that the interested public shouldn’t be able to learn about these things, but I do think they will often need assistance from those who are trained to read and discriminate this content.

And yes, journals should also do better, and peer review should be high quality and paid (you get, ultimately, what you pay for…)

Check the incentives. I know how much pressure there is for medical students to publish research just to get into residency programs. That match process often determines where they'll live for the foreseeable future. A few years later and suddenly they have MDs and things are more set.

Likewise view an MS (the degree itself) with suspicion if it was the only good way for that person to even be in the country.

Were you first-author on an unsupervised project and paper, or did someone stake their reputation on your work?

I think this is the right distinction

As usual HN posters are hyper aware of other's credentials while ignoring that their BS in CS (if that) doesn't magically qualify them to assess everything in every domain.

"I'm a software engineer, I'm sure if I had the time to study Neuroscience, I'd figure out what all of these researchers failed to realize all these decades! I (alone) have the magic of critical and logical thinking"

A lot of us here have masters, PhDs, have published in academia, worked in the hard sciences or different engineerinf disciplines.

But I agree, when youre on the internet no ones knows you're a dog.

A patient being drunk wouldn’t make it any harder for me to anaesthetise them. But if they’re drunk they wouldn’t legally be able to confirm they consent to the anaesthetic immediately prior.

Given the multiplicative effect of sedatives and depressants, do you have to factor in inebriation, for instance for a DUI in the ER? Or are the safety margins sufficient?

Generally additive, not multiplicative, and we are used to it. “Titrate to effect” is pretty standard in anesthesia, and we are watching you far more closely than average. Continuous monitoring of oxygenation, breathing, and cardiac rhythm, with no more than 5 minutes between blood pressure readings.

Can you not consent to have something done to you while drunk, while you're sober beforehand? I mean you can sign beforehand to have surgery performed while you're knocked out, that's a bit more inebriated than most sorts of drunk.

If it was actually 23mins, and not modifiable, then a myriad of important professions would be completely unviable (e.g. medicine). That is to say, it seems doubtful that the impact of interruptions can be meaningfully summarised in a single figure.

I always assumed that would be an average, meaning it takes 5s for some and 2h for others.

Again, the actual quote is not specific enough, but that would be a very wild and easily dismissed claim.

Or those tasks just got prioritized lower and lower.

I wrote my joint med-CS honours (1 year research thing we have in Aus) thesis in Word. My med supervisor was happy with it. CS supervised insisted I reformat it in LaTeX as he couldn't stand the typesetting.

Honestly I don't disagree with him, it looked far better in 'TeX. But that's probably a learnt preference.

In essence, it's culture.

Nothing is ever “proven”. There is simply more or less support for a theory or proposition.

Replication and meta-analysis are an important part of this.

Most scientists are in fact very conservative with how they claim their results - less so university PR departments and “study shows” clickbaiters.

I wish this comment was more representative of my personal experience in science.

Instead I got PIs happy to say that weak evidence "proved" their theory and to try suppress evidence that negatively impacted "fundablity". The most successful scientists I worked with were the ones who always talked like a PR puff piece.

What field, may I ask?

Applied physics. I'd prefer not to get too specific. Most of my peers are working for the US DoD or DoE now.

I wonder if what you described is due to the money incentive?

I did theoretical physics (no money) and my experience totally matches what the other person described.

I approve of this comment.

We no longer require a bun crisis to lodge this flight plan. Plenty of flights are made to Rotto for a sausage roll, any time of the year.

I’ve heard (can’t tell for sure from the photos I’ve seen) that they were “dressing the yards” at the time - which is when the crew stands on top of the yards (the horizontal spars) side by side. It’s done for ceremonial or celebratory reasons, not for work.

You're right. As can be clearly seen in the snippets shown in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIlRiauatEo

This was sufficient justification for me

I would argue against “entire”. As an academic I (and I believe many of my colleagues also) take much pride in what we write - both the content and the prose itself.

I think you should expect to have your arguments deconstructed on HN.

To do that requires addressing the actual argument.