Lumifer comments on Welcome to Less Wrong! (8th thread, July 2015) - Less Wrong

13 Post author: Sarunas 22 July 2015 04:49PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (239)

Sort By: Leading

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Lumifer 14 September 2015 04:47:01PM 7 points [-]

Challenging the medical professors' competence publicly isn't a smart move careerwise

Reminds me of:

One day when I was a junior medical student, a very important Boston surgeon visited the school and delivered a great treatise on a large number of patients who had undergone successful operations for vascular reconstruction.

At the end of the lecture, a young student at the back of the room timidly asked, “Do you have any controls?” Well, the great surgeon drew himself up to his full height, hit the desk, and said, “Do you mean did I not operate on half the patients?” The hall grew very quiet then. The voice at the back of the room very hesitantly replied, “Yes, that’s what I had in mind.” Then the visitor’s fist really came down as he thundered, “Of course not. That would have doomed half of them to their death.

”God, it was quiet then, and one could scarcely hear the small voice ask, “Which half?”