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| ▲ | dekhn 5 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Please share your qualifications for making a statement like this- do you work in biology? Are you knowledgeable about the underlying biology here, and the limitations of medical publications? | | |
| ▲ | hintklb 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Not that I agree or disagree with the underlying claim but a call to "credentialism" to dismiss someone's opinion is not as strong in 2025 as you think it is. The last few years have been a proof that even the "experts" are following strong political or personal ideology. Also we don't live in the 18th century anymore. A lot of knowledge (especially around medicine) is open to the world. People can read papers, understand research etc. | | |
| ▲ | dekhn 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | In this area, having credentials makes a difference. Experts matter. Few if any non-medical people can read medical papers and make sense of what they say. There is simply far too much context to evaluate such papers, especially in the cases of complex medical conditions. | | |
| ▲ | 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | hintklb 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sorry but strong disagree here. I have had a lot of Spinal and sleep issues. I have read almost all new literature on this niche subject and I have brought to my spine doctor some new therapy and treatments they had literally no idea about. Those treatments have changed my life. As an engineer I read a lot of deep technical paper as my day job. Medical papers are comparatively relatively simple. The most complex part being usually the statistical data analysis. We have pushed to a whole generation of people that only the "experts" can have opinion on some fields.
I encourage everyone to read papers and have opinions on some of those subjects. We are in 2025. That type of gatekeeping needs to go away. AI if anything, is going to really help with this as well. | | |
| ▲ | tjohns 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I think it's good to read papers and be curious. It's also good to work with your doctors (as you seem to have done), have a discussion, and mutually agree on a plan of treatment. Experts don't know everything. But they probably know some things you don't, and can think of questions you might not to have even thought to ask. As the saying goes, "you don't know what you don't know". Experience matters. There's also a lot of people out there without an academic background that don't know how to properly read journal papers. It's common to see folks do a quick search on PubMed, cherry-pick a single paper they agree with, and treat it as gospel - even if there's no evidence of repeatability. These skills are not something that many people outside STEM are exposed to. | | |
| ▲ | dekhn 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | Cherrypicking is bad, but worse is reading a paper and thinking you understand what it says, when you don't actually understand what it says. Or thinking that a paper and its data can be observed neutrally as a factual and accurate statement for what work was actually done. My experience in journal club- basically, a group of grad students who all read a paper and then discuss it in person- taught me that most papers are just outright wrong for technical reasons. I'd say about 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 papers passes all the basic tests, and even the ones that do pass can have significant problems. For example, there is an increasing recognition that many papers in biology and medicine have fake data, or manipulated data, or corrupted data, or incorrectly labelled data. I know folks who've read papers and convinced themselvs the paper is good, when later the paper was retracted because the authors copied a few gels into the wrong columns... | | |
| ▲ | hintklb an hour ago | parent [-] | | By extending your statement you are essentially saying that the credentialed experts have a monopoly on knowledge in their fields? As anyone else reading a paper probably think he understands but actually doesn't? What a weird take. The knowledge is out there. Yes there are a ton of bogus papers and a ton of bad research. Not everyone got the critical knowledge to figure this out but I also don't think this is only reserved to the "experts". They are also subject to groupthink and other political pressure to think a specific way. At the end of the day, do your best own research and work with your "expert" to agree on a solution. Pushing back on people reading paper is an anti-intellectual take (to use the same wording as another poster below). |
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| ▲ | plufz 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | But is that really what you are seeing in this HN comment thread? People who seem very well researched in the biochemicals and meta studies of Prozac? I don’t. :) | |
| ▲ | tombert 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | This just reads as Dunning Kruger-esque to me. You think that because you know how to read a technical paper in engineering, you're as or more competent than a doctor. Yes, experts are wrong all the time, they have the disability of being human, but this seems like an extremely anti-intellectual take. | | |
| ▲ | hintklb an hour ago | parent [-] | | sorry but your take seems to be the anti-intellectual here. You seem to think that the educated class got a monopoly on knowledge on that field, yet after that claim to know that experts are wrong all the time.
The anti-intellectual take is to give up on trying to understand as much as you can in a field because you don't have the right credentials to do so. Yes, medical papers are not that complicated to read. That doesn't make you more competent than your doctor. But it probably makes you a better advocate for yourself than your doctor is. My point is: Don't discount yourself reading papers and doing your own research. Then work with your "credentialed experts" to come to an agreement. Don't ever think that the "experts" got your best interest at heart. | | |
| ▲ | tombert 44 minutes ago | parent [-] | | I don't have a problem with reading papers and doing research, and I never once claimed that the "educated class" has or should have a monopoly on a field. You wouldn't know this, but for the first ten years of my career as a software person I was as a college dropout; I certainly am not someone who is going to get all hot and bothered about people having letters after their names. That said, I have a tough time believing that spending an hour on Sci-Hub makes you better at diagnosis, yourself or otherwise, than someone who spent a decade being educated with decades of practicing. Thinking that you know better than trained experts because you have an understanding of the very beginning of a field is overwhelmingly tempting but is generally not based in reality. Usually the people who have actually been trained in the field know more about the field than a random person who read a few papers that they thought were "comparatively relatively simple". I read papers all the time, usually formal methods, but sometimes other fields like medicine, and I will sometimes leave the medical paper thinking that it's "easier" than what I study, but I think that's just Dunning Kruger. I know more about formal methods, so I know a lot more about what I don't know, and thus I feel like it's harder. I don't know a ton about medicine, and since I don't know what I don't know it can feel like I know everything, and I have to fight this urge. By all means, read about research in whatever ailment you have, I'm not really trying to discourage that, but I feel like dismissing experts in the field is almost the definition of "anti-intellectualism". If you find a study that you think is promising, bring it to your doctor. Hell, bring it to a dozen doctors, multiple opinions isn't a bad thing. I just don't like the general "don't trust experts" thing that seems to be flying around certain circles now. |
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| ▲ | ryandrake 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > We have pushed to a whole generation of people that only the "experts" can have opinion on some fields. I encourage everyone to read papers and have opinions on some of those subjects. There's nothing wrong with having an opinion on something as a non-expert, as long as those opinions are not acted upon or relied upon as a source of reliable information. Read papers, watch YouTube, browse WebMD, satisfy your curiosity--knock yourself out. But don't undergo treatment without working with an actual expert! I'm not an expert on orbital mechanics, but I have played KSP and have formed various opinions about it. But nobody should be listening to me for advice on how to launch a rocket. We need gatekeeping for a reason, especially in the medical field which is rife with miracle cures, snake oil, herbal remedies, detoxes, homeopathy, and other forms of quackery. Believing my "research" is better than my specialist's education is a path back to the dark ages. | | |
| ▲ | hintklb 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Believing my "research" is better than my specialist's education is a path back to the dark ages. Doing your research should not be in competition with your specialist's education. It should be complementary as yet another source of information. I'm not saying experts are wrong but I also don't think they are particularly always right. They are human and they have strong groupthink. They will agree and disagree with some takes based on their personal or political beliefs. |
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| ▲ | tremon 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I hope you do realize that this comment thread is linked to an article that includes the words "Prozac no better than placebo" in its headline? | | |
| ▲ | malfist 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | These types of studies are published all the time and can easily be dismissed. Antidepressants are _only_ for major depression. Not mild or moderate. These studies that find no significance compared to a placebo are always tried in patients with all types of depression. Not just major. It's so common it's a trope. "Antidepressants don't work" says the scientists testing antidepressants on things they're not supposed to work on. Studies repeated with just major depression all conclude antidepressants are better than a placebo. Click through the article to the study and you'll find they did not limit their study to must major | |
| ▲ | dekhn 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Yes, I do. I don't consider articles in the regular press to be even remotely worth looking at due to their high rate of inaccuracy. Here's the paper that the article refers to: https://www.jclinepi.com/article/S0895-4356%2825%2900349-X/f... |
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| ▲ | robertakarobin 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Can you provide a source for that theory having been debunked? I agree that data has been found that is at odds with the various neurochemical theories but am not aware of the neurochemistry link as a whole having been definitely debunked. | | |
| ▲ | GOD_Over_Djinn 5 hours ago | parent [-] | | Whenever I read a comment like this, I’m always curious if the commenter did some basic searching of their own. Just searching “chemical imbalance debunked” yields a wide array of sources. So why ask? It seems almost like a form of Socratic questioning. You want to debate the point, but for whatever reason, are not doing so directly. | | |
| ▲ | dugidugout 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I'll take this sincerely, and ask you, is this really something you've a continuing curiosity about? I have a suspicion you understand what is taking place, but for whatever reason, are not expressing so directly. Are you asserting there is nothing more to discuss after one parses the search results for “chemical imbalance debunked”. The parent is quite clearly, at the minimum, meeting their parent's level of input, which essentially amounted to "this thing is debunked". As an onlooker and after a quick skim of the search query you suggested, I am still not exactly clear on what "neurochemistry issue [theory]" entails. What would help, is a more clear underpinning for what is being discussed, which your parent is suggesting, through question, before attempting to respond. I appreciate this personally! | |
| ▲ | robertakarobin 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Ah, well-put! I think we may be reacting differently to the same articles. My understanding is that while various neurochemical theories have not been proven as the general public seems to think, they have also not necessarily been disproven or debunked. Certainly it has not been proven that neurochemistry has no role at all. | |
| ▲ | brendoelfrendo 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I wouldn't recommend searching for "chemical imbalance debunked" unless you intend to confirm an existing bias. The internet will show you whatever you want, and there are enough people who distrust medical professionals that any search for "debunking" will be a minefield of fringe theories and grifters. I'd recommend someone start generally, searching for information about clinical depression, and then build on that to look at root causes and how the medical understanding of those root causes has changed over time. | | |
| ▲ | GOD_Over_Djinn an hour ago | parent [-] | | One of the first search results for me was a paper published in Nature. Other top results were from respected institutions like the NIH and Harvard University. Hardly grifters or crazies. The caveat you cite applies to basically any and all internet (or even media) consumption, and is therefore a non-argument. |
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| ▲ | ToucanLoucan 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Probably because the commenter is not a medical professional and isn't qualified to judge the veracity of anything they find. "Do your own research" is a fucking plague on our modern world and is why the internet is like wall to wall grifters now. By all means, Google whatever you like, but if you show up to a doctors office waving WebMD sheets in a medical professionals face, you are going to be mocked and you deserve it. | | |
| ▲ | ckw 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I witnessed a pair of doctors prescribe a family member an incredibly dangerous drug for an off label use. The company had been fined $500 million dollars for various illegal schemes to convince doctors to write such prescriptions, but I’m sure the doctors in question were unaware of this. When this family member began to exhibit textbook symptoms of an extremely dangerous (life threatening) condition which could only be caused by the drug in question, the doctors failed to notice, and in fact repeatedly increased the dosage, and added more drugs on top to treat the symptoms caused by the initial drug. It was not until I accompanied my relative to a doctor’s appointment and delivered a carefully designed incantation that they made the correct diagnosis and halted the prescriptions. So should I not have done my own research? | |
| ▲ | GOD_Over_Djinn an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | I both agree and disagree. The issue is not independent thinking and research - it’s the low media literacy of the average person that makes them vulnerable to frauds, grifters, and crazies. With that said, the first few search results for the query were from the journal Nature, the NIH, and Harvard university. Hardly the loony or malicious caricature that you attempt to paint. |
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| ▲ | amanaplanacanal 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | I don't think we know if it's a neurochemistry issue. From what I understand what was debunked was the idea that they worked by blocking the reuptake of serotonin specifically. |
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