The bias I'd worry about most, in your situation, would be the planning fallacy. What you want to do after graduating high school is a pretty weak predictor of what you'll want to do six to eight years from now. Deciding which path to follow sounds premature, I think. To the extent that it's possible, I'd suggest choosing a path that leaves both options open. (I suspect there's a lot of overlap between medicine and biochem courses at the undergraduate level.) Assuming your preferences stay the same, you'd be able to choose where to specialize in a year or two, when you have more information about how good you are.
To do world-class research though I'd have to be an intellectual heavyweight, and of that I'm not so sure.
How would you feel about doing research that is merely pretty good? Is that a better or worse outcome than going into medicine?
Do you think that one ought to always seek advice from total strangers in order to be safeguarded from his/her own biases?
Having the advice is better than not having it, so long as you're willing to ignore bad advice. The disadvantage is that you don't know which strangers are competent. If you can get advice from domain experts who aren't extremely close to you (i.e. family friends, boss's coworkers, and everyone else you might meet when "networking"), that gets you both reliability and impartiality.
How would you feel about doing research that is merely pretty good? Is that a better or worse outcome than going into medicine? Is that a better or worse outcome than going into medicine?
I wish to cure aging. I'd need to do stellar research to that end, unfortunately. It'd still be preferable to practicing Medicine for the rest of my life though.
I graduated from high school and wish to further my education formally by studying for a bachelor's degree in order to become a medical researcher. I could, for instance, take two different academic paths:
Study Medicine at undergraduate level and then do a postdoctoral fellowship.
Study Biochemistry at undergraduate level, then study for a PhD at graduate level, and finally do a postdoctoral fellowship.
Since I will do these studies in Europe, they each take approximately the same amount of time, namely 6 to 8 years.
Do I want to do treat patients? No, I do not. But I am considering Medicine because it can be a buffer against my own mediocrity: in case I turn out to be a below average scientist, I will be screwed royally. From my personal job shadowing experience, Medicine, on the other hand, requires mere basic intellectual traits, primarily the ability to memorize heaps of information. And those I think I have. To do world-class research though I'd have to be an intellectual heavyweight, and of that I'm not so sure.
How do I decide what path to follow?
The reason I'm asking you strangers for advice is because I evidently have biases, such as the pessimism/optimism bias or the Dunning–Kruger effect, that impair my ability to reason clearly; and people who know me personally are likewise prone to make errors in advising me because of biases like, say, the Halo effect. (Come to think of it, thinking that I can't become an above average scientist is in itself a self-defeating prophecy!)
Do you think that one ought to always seek advice from total strangers in order to be safeguarded from his/her own biases?
PS: I apologize if I should have written this in a specific thread. I'll delete my article if that's necessary.