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13415yesterday at 5:04 PM2 repliesview on HN

You're nitpicking. Medicine is concerned with what's good and bad for someone's health. Medical doctors literally advise their patients on that and evaluate the effects of actions with respect to what's good and what's bad for their health. What's good and bad for someone's health is simply one form of instrumental goodness. Other sciences evaluate in similar ways, though they are perhaps concerned with other aspects of what's good and bad. Climate scientists are not concerned with what's good and bad for mankind in some abstract philosophical way, but they should without a doubt lay out good or bad consequences of climate change. If the temperature sinks by 10 degrees Celsius in Northern Europe, that would be a bad consequence for the affected countries.

It's false and somewhat naive to claim that such evaluations play no role in science, they are a crucial part of many sciences. For instance, they're needed to find worthwhile subjects of study. Not everything is theoretical physics.


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joquarkyyesterday at 8:56 PM

You're talking in ideals, not reality.

In reality, medicine wants your money and that's all that matters to them.

9rxyesterday at 5:28 PM

> Medical doctors literally advise their patients on that and evaluate the effects of actions with respect to what's good and what's bad for their health.

You're talking about a consultant now. Yes, consultants take scientific understanding and help translate it into what the customer wants to hear: doing their best to interpret what the other person is likely to think is "good" or "bad". Which, I will add, is not absolute. Often patients reject the doctor's opinion of what is "good". It is technically possible for someone to be both a scientist and a consultant, of course. Humans can do many things. But generally medical doctors are focused on operating consultancies alone. There usually isn't enough time in the day to be both deeply engrossed in science and other professions at the same time. Generally speaking, medical doctors are not scientists in any meaningful sense. That's literally why we call them medical doctors or physicians instead of calling them scientists... Yes, there are some exceptions, as there always is. But, to be sure, even in those exceptional cases, we don't call them scientists when they are operating in a consulting capacity.

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