Very good, thank you
@dave30th.
There is definitely a strong parallel to the idea of science being "self-correcting", and the fact that institutions, rules and laws are also self-enforcing. People enforce rules and laws. People review and publish science. The "self"-correction process of science is not some automated thing that works itself by magic. And as such, it can also be effectively derailed, blocked by people, with interests that go against the greater good, in about the same as an institution tasked with enforcing some rules can choose not to, and if there's no power above them, then that's that.
There are parallels to politics and the rule of law, but it applies in full in here. None of these rules and principles have any power in themselves. They need people to apply them. But as we can see in the real world, there's often nothing that people outside of those institutions can do in those situations. Or even inside, if there's a consensus that those "don't matter here".
What happens when an institution like Cochrane have written rules, and point to those rules to boost their credibility, how it's by following those rules that they deserve credibility, but they decide to skip all this when they prefer not to? It turns out that most people who look to that institution don't actually do anything. They continue pretending like the writing on the wall means anything, even as they march through paths that explicitly ignore them. Even when the writing on the wall says "you can't stand here", and the only way to read it is by... standing there.
Basically, human society is mostly an honor system. From the institutions of power to the ones of science, it's all the same. Dishonor can go a long way unless it has consequences. Even worse is when dishonor, when flouting the very rules those institutions build their credibility out of, unless people truly care, becomes widely accepted, maybe first in some cases, it sets off a long slippery slope, then in any case where the enforcers decide otherwise.
Here the slippery slope of "actually science is not self-correcting, people have to correct it" is leading to the rapid enshittification of health care, where one can now walk through a hospital and see the department of radiology, then oncology, and maybe next to that Reiki, or maybe the spanking new Mind-body lab. It will only get worse from here, until the delusion of self-correction is something people wake up from.
Hey there ought to be a term for this, for becoming aware of those things, of "awakening" from the slumber of self-delusion.
Ah, well, nevertheless.
