you trust science but not people?
you realize they are the same thing, right?
If you say so.
You can spot the difference between people and science in this short story about Ignaz Semmelweiß:
Ignaz Philipp Semmelweis (German:
[ˈɪɡnaːts ˈzɛml̩vaɪs];
Hungarian:
Semmelweis Ignác Fülöp [ˈsɛmmɛlvɛjs ˈiɡnaːts ˈfyløp]; 1 July 1818 – 13 August 1865) was a Hungarian physician and scientist, who was an early pioneer of antiseptic procedures. Described as the "saviour of mothers",
[2] he discovered that the
incidence of
puerperal fever (also known as "childbed fever") could be drastically reduced by requiring hand disinfection in
obstetrical clinics. Puerperal fever was common in mid-19th-century hospitals and often fatal. He proposed the practice of
washing hands with
chlorinated lime solutions in 1847 while working in
Vienna General Hospital's First Obstetrical Clinic, where doctors' wards had three times the mortality of
midwives' wards.
[3] He published a book of his findings in
Etiology, Concept and Prophylaxis of Childbed Fever.
Despite various publications of results where hand-washing reduced
mortality to below 2%, Semmelweis's observations conflicted with the
established scientific and medical opinions of the time and his ideas were rejected by the medical community. He could offer no theoretical explanation for his findings of reduced mortality due to hand-washing, and
some doctors were offended at the suggestion that they should wash their hands and mocked him for it. In 1865, the increasingly outspoken Semmelweis allegedly suffered a nervous breakdown and was committed to an
asylum by his colleagues. In the asylum he was beaten by the guards.
He died 14 days later from
a gangrenous wound on his right hand that may have been caused by the beating.
Here is a story about science being correct and the people that work in science pretending to be Gods that cannot have "unclean" hands. Groupthink is the problem in science and capitalism of course; Science as a process is great stuff.
www.yahoo.com
