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Comment by LordDragonfang | Hacker News Reader

As a counterpoint: if there is to be productive discussion about fringe drugs being used to treat diseases, it's going to be between medical professionals. There is no compelling reason that uneducated citizens with no medical expertise need to discuss them. I personally know several medical professionals that were aghast at the "discussion" around hydroxychloroquine.

Also worth noting hiding behind "just discussing" something is a slippery slope in its own right. There's a long history of people claiming to be "just asking questions" when they're transparently using "discussion" as a means to spread fringe ideology.

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Nah. There are many cases where the medical consensus was wildly wrong and outsiders were correct.

Limiting fat and protein in favor of carbs in one’s diet is a good example. This bad advice lead to an obesity epidemic that has killed millions of people.

If you can find evidence that the consensus was reversed by uneducated outsiders going with their "gut feelings" rather than published scientific study, you would have a point here.

As it stands, I am very skeptical that you could find any such evidence.

The way to change consensus is evidence-based advocacy by experts, not idle speculation by the domain-uneducated.

I think you have your order of operations wrongs. The discussion happens, "gut feelings" are had, and then it is science.

Without the discussion many of the topis scientist study and figure out the truth would never have happened.

We need the conversations and even controversy help decide where we spend the resource of what scientist study.

edit: gatekeeping

You may need gatekeepers to feel safe in life. Feel free to find a safe, walled garden for yourself. The rest of us live in reality, and recognize that organizations of human beings have always been subject to groupthink and have suppressed new and unpopular ideas. They are also prone to fads and fashion. In the 90s, the medical establishment claimed eggs were as dangerous as cigarettes. They insisted that avocados were unhealthy.

The funding to eventually overturn this bad science was suppressed at mainstream institutions and had to be obtained from the very outsiders you condemn. Phrenology and scientific racism were embraved by the experts for decades. Lucky for us, people didn't follow your advice then.

>As a counterpoint: if there is to be productive discussion about fringe drugs being used to treat diseases, it's going to be between medical professionals

Notwithstanding the merits or lack thereof of your point, the videos about chloroquine and ivermectin that were banned WERE discussions by medical professionals. Have you seen them?

This is actually a great point that I'd never considered.

Its completely true based on my FB or twitter feed where you can find thousands of people who couldn't pass a GED test arguing a bout science that they don't understand.

What a dystopian future you’re painting. Even “discussing” becomes “promoting fringe ideology”. Only “experts” can have these forbidden conversations.

Yikes. I can only imagine how little progress we would have made as a civilization with an a approach like that.

gatekeeping

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