Vote for a Health/Medical Forum

[edthedoc]

Further to my thread on the idea of a separate forum from the this Science forum can we use this thread for voting on the idea (should have set this up in the original thread).

[arcticpenguin]

I voted "Bad Idea" because I think it is useful to remind people that all those fantastic advances of modern medicine are brought to them courtesy of application of the scientific method.

Croos-reference the Dini thread here.

[serratia]

Yay! Great idea! I'm an RN and even though I work at a large university-affiliated hospital, there's woo-woo aplenty.

Let's fight the woo-woo, medical people!

[hammegk]

Are you suggesting medicine is not a "science"?

Or wouldn't be a "current event"? Lot's of it is certainly "political"; i.e. lets spend several million on one child, instead of providing basic health for several million children who have none?

IMNSHO, we don't need another thread here. How many med specialty boards already exist? Hundreds, maybe? ( I'm too lazy to look).

[arcticpenguin]

Originally posted by serratia
Yay! Great idea! I'm an RN and even though I work at a large university-affiliated hospital, there's woo-woo aplenty.

Let's fight the woo-woo, medical people!
How better to "fight the woo-woo" than by emphasizing that good medicine is based on science?

[roger]

I voted bad, mostly because I can't see what problem you are trying to solve. The science forum already moves pretty slowly compared to ones like banter, so it's not like worthy threads get pushed off the first page all that often.

The other reason is that the science already pretty clearly covers medicine. I could see the point, maybe, if the suggestion was to add a cooking forum, if there were 20 new threads started every day on cooking, and there is no clear forum to post them at.

[Psi Baba]

Originally posted by arcticpenguin
I voted "Bad Idea" because I think it is useful to remind people that all those fantastic advances of modern medicine are brought to them courtesy of application of the scientific method.

Croos-reference the Dini thread here.
I voted "good idea" but almost for the same reason. Discussions of medical science should stay in the Science Forum, but we should have a JREF Topic forum for woo woo medicine topics. The Paranormal Forum doesn't really apply. Maybe a Pseudoscience Forum would be an even better idea. I think it would be a bad idea to mix serious discussions of medical topics with discussions of woo woo medicine. It might give the wrong impression to some that we're suggesting that medicine is not necessarily a science, or that "alternative/complimentary" medicine is science (I'm not sure which of these misunderstandings would be worse).

[edthedoc]

The reason for the new forum would be to separate out the medical topics from science topics. It's that simple. It has nothing to do with claiming medicine is a science or not.

[arcticpenguin]

http://www.nature.com/nsu/030303/030303-10.html

Scientists excited because they found a bacteria that infects mice! Is this science or medicine?

[arcticpenguin]

http://www.nature.com/nsu/030303/030303-8.html

"Researchers have found a molecular switch that enables the immune system's cells to function without oxygen."

Science or medicine?

I could go on, but I hope I'm making my point.

[serratia]

Not all science involves medicine; but all (good) medicine is evidence-based and therefore involves science. There would be some overlap, yes, but I think there are enough purely medical scientific issues to fill a forum.

Of course, I'm just a little 7-post lurker punk, so what do I know?

:D