<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>wwweston</author><text>&amp;gt; What else should scientists do than challenging the status quo?&lt;p&gt;Sure, and I rather suspect there are all sorts of venues that scientists could use to communicate scientific reasons challenging the status quo, ones in which there&amp;#x27;d be a process of discourse with other domain experts capable of independently evaluating claims.&lt;p&gt;YouTube is significant mass media. But the idea that it&amp;#x27;s a crucial early stage link in the scientific process is one of the most ridiculous things about this conversation.&lt;p&gt;When you deal in mass distribution, the dynamics and responsibilities are different than when you&amp;#x27;re in conversation&amp;#x2F;process with other domain experts. If you can&amp;#x27;t build up a decent threshold of support within circles of expertise first, it&amp;#x27;s likely your counterclaim won&amp;#x27;t have real value for a mass market. Or worse.&lt;p&gt;And if you want access to a mass market anyway without having to face those challenges first, it&amp;#x27;s possible that what you&amp;#x27;re about is more personal privilege than substantial contribution to the marketplace of ideas.&lt;p&gt;And given how ridiculously diverse and incredibly free the online marketplace for ideas is right now, considering how it has never been easier to get mass distribution of even pretty questionable ideas, it&amp;#x27;s a pretty weird time to take the posture that we&amp;#x27;re actually suffering under an oppressively censored discourse regime.</text><parent_chain><item><author>micouay</author><text>What else should scientists do than challenging the status quo?&lt;p&gt;Bret (Eric&amp;#x27;s brother, biology PhD) had a 2h long conversation with Pierre Kory (MD) and it was taken down by YT. One of the things they talked was the recommendations of WHO and other organisations to focus on supportive care only (supporting the patient while their organism fights the disease by itself). They insist on &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; using other treatments outside clinical trials. The argument that running experiments would cost lives doesn&amp;#x27;t seem coherent. It&amp;#x27;s not like we have this 100+ yrs practice of dealing with SARS-CoV-2 epidemic with well established protocols. What if we&amp;#x27;re clinging to a suboptimal strategy?</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>“YouTube is shutting down dissenting Biology PhDs and MDs”</title><url>https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1403915244473253893</url></story>
<instructions>Your goal is to analyze the following comment and estimate how highly it will be upvoted by the Hacker News community.</instructions><comment><author>yokaze</author><text>&amp;gt; They insist on not using other treatments outside clinical trials. The argument that running experiments would cost lives doesn&amp;#x27;t seem coherent.&lt;p&gt;Clinical trials are structured experiments which follow a certain protocol, ethical review, etc...&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s not like we have this 100+ yrs practice of dealing with SARS-CoV-2 epidemic with well established protocols&lt;p&gt;We do have 100+ years of practice in dealing with various diseases, circumstances, including pandemics, etc... In that sense SARS-CoV-2 is nothing special.
Protocols have been developed to ensure that we actually gain knowledge, and not at the expense of the patients.&lt;p&gt;Should we skip on ethical review boards? Or patient confidentiality? Which part of a clinical study are you suggesting are superfluous?</text><parent_chain><item><author>micouay</author><text>What else should scientists do than challenging the status quo?&lt;p&gt;Bret (Eric&amp;#x27;s brother, biology PhD) had a 2h long conversation with Pierre Kory (MD) and it was taken down by YT. One of the things they talked was the recommendations of WHO and other organisations to focus on supportive care only (supporting the patient while their organism fights the disease by itself). They insist on &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; using other treatments outside clinical trials. The argument that running experiments would cost lives doesn&amp;#x27;t seem coherent. It&amp;#x27;s not like we have this 100+ yrs practice of dealing with SARS-CoV-2 epidemic with well established protocols. What if we&amp;#x27;re clinging to a suboptimal strategy?</text></item></parent_chain></comment><story><title>“YouTube is shutting down dissenting Biology PhDs and MDs”</title><url>https://twitter.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1403915244473253893</url></story>