Pfft comments on Religion, Mystery, and Warm, Soft Fuzzies - Less Wrong

17 Post author: Psychohistorian 14 May 2009 11:41PM

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Comment author: thomblake 15 May 2009 08:15:43PM 5 points [-]

Even moreso, the alternative seems to be placing blame entirely on the doctor for not being an omnipotent being when the surgery goes wrong. "It was his time, he's in heaven now" seems like a pretty sweet cop-out, and it should come as no surprise that a more secular society would hold its surgeons too accountable.

Comment author: Pfft 16 May 2009 07:12:02PM 3 points [-]

But this doesn't seem to be what we are seeing empirically: northern europe is a lot more secular than the US, yet it is the US that has the problems with excessive medical malpractice litigation.

Comment author: MichaelBishop 19 May 2009 02:37:47PM 1 point [-]

The US has more lawsuits outside of the medical arena as well. I think this has more to do with our respective legal systems rather than how secular we are.

Comment author: Annoyance 17 May 2009 02:46:09AM 0 points [-]

Being responsible and engaging in malpractice are two different things.

We might not say that a surgeon violated any of the proprieties, yet still hold that he failed to save a patient; the alternative seems to be saying that the death was fated and it was "his time to go".