- Joined
- Jun 15, 2004
- Messages
- 876
- Reaction score
- 1
I thought I would make a thread out of my post in the public health thread.
I have a botany/ecology/poli sci prof that comes down on docs very hard, especially in the arena of public health. He claims that docs tend to know way too much and cannot tell good narratives, and they are also not scientists because they do not collect data etc. He is right on, especially when he uses the example of public health with respect to the plague. It wasnt quarantine or knowing all of the answers that slowed the plague, it was public health...speading people out. The plague kept comming back in a delayed negative feedback loop, and the only reason it kept getting smaller was because of public health. It has also been public health (ie move the sewage out of the well) that has curbed more disease than we can traditionally treat. When 2nd world countries (Russia) with antibiotics and no control produce a disease that could be resistant tuberculosis combined with an HIV or similar features, we need to be able to prevent and solve this problem. He argues engineering inefficiency into the system is key...for example:
Which city is bigger, San Diego or San Antonio? Half of americans get this question wrong...where as forgeiners get it right 100 percent of the time. Why? Because they don't know that san antonio exists...simply knowing makes you interpret the information, and therefore sometimes you make the wrong choice. We need to learn to manage the system as a whole Think about democracy, it is so inefficient that the slack in the system provides a stable structure (ie electing Bush
) Churchill once said it was a horrible form of government, but better than all of the rest. I guess one of his big points in the end is that we need get away from trying to learn everything, and take a step back if we want to solve some future complex problems.
I have a botany/ecology/poli sci prof that comes down on docs very hard, especially in the arena of public health. He claims that docs tend to know way too much and cannot tell good narratives, and they are also not scientists because they do not collect data etc. He is right on, especially when he uses the example of public health with respect to the plague. It wasnt quarantine or knowing all of the answers that slowed the plague, it was public health...speading people out. The plague kept comming back in a delayed negative feedback loop, and the only reason it kept getting smaller was because of public health. It has also been public health (ie move the sewage out of the well) that has curbed more disease than we can traditionally treat. When 2nd world countries (Russia) with antibiotics and no control produce a disease that could be resistant tuberculosis combined with an HIV or similar features, we need to be able to prevent and solve this problem. He argues engineering inefficiency into the system is key...for example:
Which city is bigger, San Diego or San Antonio? Half of americans get this question wrong...where as forgeiners get it right 100 percent of the time. Why? Because they don't know that san antonio exists...simply knowing makes you interpret the information, and therefore sometimes you make the wrong choice. We need to learn to manage the system as a whole Think about democracy, it is so inefficient that the slack in the system provides a stable structure (ie electing Bush
) Churchill once said it was a horrible form of government, but better than all of the rest. I guess one of his big points in the end is that we need get away from trying to learn everything, and take a step back if we want to solve some future complex problems.
!
