Declining trust in Zeus is a technology, Mastroianni, 2024

Interesting article, thank you for posting.

 

"...and no, we're not going to explain why we're doing it. You're not in our special club."

 

Hmm

I'm not a big fan of the term 'better arguments'. Too ambiguous.

I think the real solution lies in them understanding that - like integrity is something that is easily lost because basically means '100% of the time sticking to truth' and that 'doing the talking' it is about stepping back and realising what their values and what they do actually are. Not what they think (or would like to think) they are.

In certain procedures the 'quality' is measured by the rate of accident or averse consequences or occurences of side-effects. In conditions deemed more important than ME it is proper outcomes ie 5yr follow-up that are measured and reported. Not through the lens of the people marking their own homework for their department. Yellow card data and statistics on which treatment works for whom/what type of issue, along with knowledge on side-effects and who certain things might tend to occur with can be incorporated to decisions on treatment or changes to it.

I think that is called 'transparency' and it corresponds to trust and integrity because someone submitted to it/is OK with that. Nothing to do with argument.

It would have been hard for a bad broken leg fixer to claim that something now at an angle visibly and definitely dodgy on an x-ray is 'perfect healing'. Could that be why the system works best there? Plus of course I'm unaware of it being a big earner area for woo, in the UK apparently it is the A&E type stuff that would never be taken on by privates' cherry-picking so I'm guessing it's expensive and harder to business-model.

The usual issue of people who think the starting point is them talking, instead of it being listening and self-effacement. Identifying where medicine itself is just a merely 'aping/feigning/performative' of what it claims to be, in the same way 'other traditions' might have copied as a sales technique.

If there are areas where they are worse or no better than whatever made-up pretend thing they want to call these 'others' then really it isn't about 'arguments' but 'acknowledgement'. Where observation happens properly and research design isn't 'framed' to get results that fit with gut-ideas of what a condition might be.

And if they believe that they/their approach can do better one day in these areas then they need to remember what those values and approaches actually require - rather than looking for something to offer that fills the gaps.

Are all of their departments 'science-based' or whatever 'good things' they believe are rolled under that term they call themselves of 'traditional'? Is it time that within this they identify the departments who are science-based vs belief-based and fill the gaps for certain conditions where no science-based is there - with people who also know and believe in proper science only, and do not rely on trying to argue their 'belief-based' can 'look like science if you do a few random correlations'?

Does this all actually need less 'argument' and more listening and proper assessment to check those saying these things aren't the ones with the point.